averagecdn Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 A friend has come to me and asked me to build him a new server. Unfortunantely I have little to no experience in dealing with servers and understanding the different chipsets that are available and what they do and don't support.I will list the hardware I currently have and if someone can recommened a board its greatly appreciated4x 10k WD 74GB Raptor Hard Drives1 Dual Head Intel GB Network AdapterWindows Server 2003Leadtek Video Card (not sure of the specifics)CD RomI am looking for a new board that has a Hardware RAID solution with RAID 5. I am currently running Raid 0+1. I would like a board that is ATX and something that has onboard video. The big thing is the RAID 5 support. Above anything else the RAID is a must. Any help is appreciated... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmX.Memnoch Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 See the recommendations in this thread... http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=68579 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
averagecdn Posted March 27, 2006 Author Share Posted March 27, 2006 I saw that post however that posting does nothing to address any of the hardware requirements I am looking at. I am not interested in putting a bunch of add on cards into a machine to achieve my desired outcome. I believe addon cards = more problems. The real recommendation I am looking for is motherboards. Workstation/Server/ Desktop computer class I don't care its just gotta have Raid 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmX.Memnoch Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 (edited) You'll be hard pressed to find a motherboard with good built-in RAID5. And if you do it'll be nothing more than a PCI/PCI-X/PCIe card integrated into the motherboard. Servers are something I do for a living and you'll find that most of them use add-in cards for everything.The reason for using add-in cards is quick replacement in case of failure. If it's integrated into the motherboard you have to replace the entire motherboard...which means disconnecting everything, pulling the CPUs off, RAM off, etc, etc. That means more downtime.I assume your plan is to use all four Raptors in RAID5 and partition that for OS and data? Edited March 27, 2006 by nmX.Memnoch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
averagecdn Posted March 27, 2006 Author Share Posted March 27, 2006 What would you recommend for hardware? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmX.Memnoch Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 What's the server going to be used for and how many users will be concurrently using it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
averagecdn Posted March 28, 2006 Author Share Posted March 28, 2006 What's the server going to be used for and how many users will be concurrently using it?Ok currently in teh domain controller,print server,file server, application server. There is possibility that this is also going to be doing hosting and mail. There are currently 2 users that use it constantly for printing and accessing large databases. The boss wants to start a website and we are currently talking about exchange possibly too. So thats basically it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 How many users are on it? If there are more then 50 persons working with it I would separate the tasks on more "cheap" servers for example and use a KVM switch to use only one keyboard, mouse and screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmX.Memnoch Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 What's the server going to be used for and how many users will be concurrently using it?Ok currently in teh domain controller,print server,file server, application server. There is possibility that this is also going to be doing hosting and mail. There are currently 2 users that use it constantly for printing and accessing large databases. The boss wants to start a website and we are currently talking about exchange possibly too. So thats basically it.I'm with puntoMX on this one...split some of that stuff up if you can. If you can't split it up, then use the recommendations I posted in the thread I linked above.If you can split it up then Exchange should be on it's own server and you definitely don't want to run a public web server on your domain controller. That's just bad security...In the worst case run your domain controller and Exchange on the same server (provided we're not talking anymore than 50-100 users) and run the web server on a seperate box.A bit more information would help in providing you with a really good recommendation though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
averagecdn Posted March 29, 2006 Author Share Posted March 29, 2006 What information are you looking for nmX.Memnoch? The spliting up is what I want to do but trying to get the boss to understand that is a little harder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 We want information on server utilization:- How many user for each program, now and future- How many programs and all the program names, now and future- Traffic on server now and future- Investment price- And so on, … Just some more info on that please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmX.Memnoch Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 (edited) Exactly. Basically we need to know the utilization. We don't want to give recommendations that would be underpowered in two years. Overpowered is OK as long as it's within your budget.Which brings me to my next point...how much is your budget?As for splitting it up...it's just good security to have your web server kind of isolated from everything else, especially if it's going to be a public web server. Edited March 29, 2006 by nmX.Memnoch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitroshift Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 I'd say the Intel SE7525RP2 (Rolling Prairie) would run just fine. Any other opinions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
averagecdn Posted March 30, 2006 Author Share Posted March 30, 2006 Well the boss has made a decision.. He is going to hold off on this little project Thanks for all the assistance and I will keep a copy of the posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarquel Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 (edited) Hi there.Both puntoMX and nmX.Memnoch have given some sound advice. Just going to add my "two cents" to the topic too.The boss wants to start a website and we are currently talking about exchange possibly tooWhatever you do, it is strongly advised [where possible] that if your looking to setup exchange in the organisation, that you have it on a seperate server to the domain controller. Cant remember the exact reasons behind this off-hand, but check out http://msexchange.org [hope that link is right] for more info and advice.While I found it pretty straight forward to set this all up myself, with little to no experience with servers - depending on your skills and knowledge - you might find it easy or very difficult to set all this up.To aid you with it, try and study up on all the aspects of it - as you dont mention what knowledge you possess on these aspects, its hard to know what to suggest [part of what the others were getting at too I think ].Like its been said, it all depends how many users you are going to have on the system [try to look to the future amount of users - not just the current amount] and see in each role you want a server to have, how much usage each role will have.Few examples:application server = will applications be run continually off this or just every so often when needed? and when needed, will all the users be running them simultaneously or not?email/exchange server = will the users have they email box open throughout the working day or will they periodically check their email and close it? Also, will every user have an email account or just certain departments? etc.These type of things will help you see whether ypu need seperate servers for each role, or not, as the case may be.Hope that helps and regarding the website - depending on what you want from the website - you may find it easier to use external hosting instead of having to add more to the workload of setting this up and running it yourself. Theres numerous hosts out there but PM me if you think I can help you.All the best.Nath. Edited March 31, 2006 by tarquel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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