Spec me new dev server

[Basher]

Originally posted by kaillum
but the problem with big named servers and their back up service is that if the server dies, you ring a helpdesk phone number.. they then assign you a service call number, and your number takes its place in a queue.. then some time later when the tech support bloke gets off his lunch break, he'll ring you back and ask what the problem is.. you tell him e.g the network card has died.. please bring us another one and fit it, as its against the user agreement to open the case... h'ok he says.. and 2 days later he turns up fits your new NIC and your back off and running

where as if you've built the server yourself, and its not a mission critical server (remember title "Spec me new dev server") then if it goes t!ts up, you can rip it apart and buy a new NIC, bang it in and 10 minutes later your off and running again..

yeah i understand that and you do have a good point, but what if it wasn't the Nic, and was a more pricey item such as a motherboard or CPU or whatever, the chances are u wont have a spare MB lying around so the time it takes u to sort out the warranty info + get a new one under warranty could well be much longer than ringing up a big name, such as dell to ship u the relevant new parts. Especially if a part breaks more than once.

[Basher]

Originally posted by TiG
Bashar - i would if it was a live server, however its not, its a development box, I can't justify spending stupid money on a dell box when quite frankly my views on dells are crap, they're support service is useless, and i'm fed up with how crap my current account manager is. This is the 4th one i've had this year.

Ok yeah thats fair enuff

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by kaillum
personally i'd be soooo much more inclined to go with Xeon chips and a dual board.. little more exensive, but you pays for what you get...

bear in mind these prices are all from scan, so its not the cheapest on the net, but its all I cba to check


Supermicro X5DALG Dual Xeon x8 AGP £338.40
2 X 2.2GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 Xeon™ CPU 512K £247.27
2 X 512Mb PC2100 (PC266) DDR - ECC Registered Micron Major £173.90
4 x 120Gb Maxtor Plus 9 ATA-133 (7200rpm, 2MB Cache) £300.80
TOTAL £1,077.99

thats excluding a case, but bang on a cheapish £100 server case, and your under the £1200 mark...

and that machine will handle any dev work you wanna throw at it without breaking a sweat

wish we could get similar spec servers at work, but there all lame quad 400/500 Xeons...

I completely agree with you on this dual Xeon business... I've two rigs (part of my render farm) that are dual Xeons. Actually, I picked up the exact parts (CPUs, mobo and RAM) from Scan and their service was great! (see my site)

[royce]

I say get yourself a P4 3.2ghz chip, with HT technology. Get a board that supports serial ata (dont they all now ) then just buy 10k rpm serial ata drives. I almost bought a 36gb 10krpm sata just to try it out, hmmm..

[Jiff Lemon]

Tig,

Just a thought - If you're running 4x120gig, why not run in them in Raid 5?

Just looking at Supermicros' SuperWorkstation 7033A-T which is looking decidedly yummy..... Not found the price yet though!

[dgr]

whats the differnece between raid-5 and radi-0+1?

damn all those raid constructs!

dgr

[TiG]

Originally posted by royce
I say get yourself a P4 3.2ghz chip, with HT technology. Get a board that supports serial ata (dont they all now ) then just buy 10k rpm serial ata drives. I almost bought a 36gb 10krpm sata just to try it out, hmmm..

Because I need 240GB of mirrored space, and i don't know of any canterwood system that could support that stupid number of raptor's i would need for that. ;p

TiG

[TiG]

Originally posted by Jiff Lemon
Tig,

Just a thought - If you're running 4x120gig, why not run in them in Raid 5?

Just looking at Supermicros' SuperWorkstation 7033A-T which is looking decidedly yummy..... Not found the price yet though!

Jiff,

Company policy i'm afraid. All new machines that hold company data are to built using raid 1. Don't ask me why its one of those decisions that don't make sense to me.

TiG

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by kaillum
if your not clocking it, which you'd be silly to do with a dev server, runnin 24/7 i'd say that any generic ECC ram will be AS stable as any stick of non ECC branded... whether Corsair/Crucial whatever!

Precisely, when you spec a server you are best off overspeccing on the key components (RAM, CPU, Cooling, PSU) that would happily run at much higher stable overclocks and just running the server at stock - it has worked wonders for me and I haven't yet run into any problems on 24/7 File Server/DB Server (small/medium business servers) ...

One thing I would insist on is SCSI HDDs - by running 4 * IDE with Mirroring (RAID-1) you are asking for problems - consider spending more of your budget on a decent SCSI RAID-5 subsystem if you are serious (you get what you pay for) but at the very least spec SCSI for the OS and have the IDE drives as data only.

[TiG]

I'm afraid that is way out of the budget

You find me 240GB of mirrored scsi harddisks (480GB total) for an affordable price and i'd buy some.

I think you'll find thats out of the question within the budget. Raid 1 IDE is mirrored, thats the pricise point of the system, its fault tolerant, Its a dev system none the less, sure i want it to be up 24/7 but its not a live server and the same constraints don't need to be applied to it.

BlackSheep, If corsair ram was a sensible server solution over ECC don't you think someone like Dell, Compaq etc would use it?.

Simple fact is if i go Xeon systems Corsair memory would be totally pointless.

I think its best to agree to differ on this point.
Thanks
TiG

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by TiG
I'm afraid that is way out of the budget

BlackSheep, If corsair ram was a sensible server solution over ECC don't you think someone like Dell, Compaq etc would use it?.

Simple fact is if i go Xeon systems Corsair memory would be totally pointless.

I think its best to agree to differ on this point.
Thanks
TiG

I'd still budget for SCSI boot/system drive

If you went Xeon most memory would be fine, decent branded ECC if possible (as you wouldn't need the extra bandwidth of Corsair).

Dell/compaq wouldn't use memory as expensive as corsair if they could get away with it, same goes for their PSUs - I'm working on a Dell dual Xeon and believe me the quality is well below that of a self-built server and it shows in performance/reliability - I seem to have to reboot this every now again as it slows to a crawl (not so for self-built system).

[TiG]

I can't budget for money the company isn't going to give me Blacksheep. I'd sure love to build a dual opteron system with a nice U320 scsi system with oodles of memory but it isn't gonna happen. For one AMD is not on the companies approved list. The system has a budget of £1000 and however much i want to change that its not going to happen.

TiG

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by TiG
I can't budget for money the company isn't going to give me Blacksheep. I'd sure love to build a dual opteron system with a nice U320 scsi system with oodles of memory but it isn't gonna happen. For one AMD is not on the companies approved list. The system has a budget of £1000 and however much i want to change that its not going to happen.

TiG

I didn't mention Opteron - you must be a mind reader

Good luck with the build, d00d, whichever way you play it.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by TiG
For a project i'm going to be doing shortly i'm going to require a lot of disk space for a sql server2k system.

Cost to be kept under £1k if possible.

Requirements 4*120GB HD, to be run in raid 1 (mirrored) or equivilant to give me 240GB of raid 1 storage.
No amd processors.
1gb of ram.
no requirements for flashy graphics so nothing extensive required (may use ati rage pro which i've got about 6 of spare)
No monitor or software, system will run on the work msdn licences.

Suggestions please?.

Thanks
TiG

4 maxtor DM 9+
Intel mobo with Intel CPU - Epox 4PCA3+ with 6 IDE ports - 4 RAID.
1gig PC3200 (ecc)
Matrox 550/650/750P

I run ^^ with 3 harddisks and matrox 550. Solid as a rock and damn fast too. You could run 2x ICH5/R SATA raid as boot drive and then have 2x 120gig P// ATA storage?

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by Bindibadgi
4 maxtor DM 9+
Intel mobo with Intel CPU - Epox 4PCA3+ with 6 IDE ports - 4 RAID.
1gig PC3200 (ecc)
Matrox 550/650/750P

I run ^^ with 3 harddisks and matrox 550. Solid as a rock and damn fast too. You could run 2x ICH5/R SATA raid as boot drive and then have 2x 120gig P// ATA storage?

and where are you going to mirror to ... ?

[Bindibadgi]

Well youve got 2 more p// ATA ports use your own noggin 4x 120gig disks?