Suggestions before pulling the 2008 trigger

[Jaredean]

I got the go ahead to purchase a new server. It has taken over a year
of begging to finally get this approval, so i don't want to order too
little / wrong thing cause our last one lasted 5 years, but the last
couple have been hard with space issues.

Current:
Dell PowerEdge 1800sc
SBS 2003 Premium
4 GB Memory
RAID 5 (3 drives) 300 Gig
2 partition (C/D) C: 50 gig, D: 250 Gig

Don't Like: small C drive, having both drives only be partitions and
not actual physical drives, small size of data drive.

So, this time around i wanted 2 separate logical drives - one for OS
and one for Data. I also wanted our Data drive to be quite large
since we deal with large image files for clients, etc. I didn't want
to have to be "deleting things" to try and make space. Here is what
i've setup to order:

New:
Dell PowerEdge T610
SBS 2008 Standard
12 GB RAM (1066MHz Dual Ranked UDIMMs for 1 Processor, Optimized)
1 Xeon Processor, 2.26GHz 8M Cache, Turbo, HT, 1066MHz Max Mem
SAS 6/iR Integrated
I've had them setup the system with 2 RAID 1 groups - one for OS and
one for Data...i didn't want to do Raid 5, cause the drives seem
like they are contstantly spinning...i don't feel i get enough
of a speed increase anyway...maybe i'm wrong
C (OS):160GB / D (DATA): 1TB
i'll be using 3 x 1TB external drives for backup to rotate off-site
i want to install an eSata connection for the external drives
NETGEAR FVS318 ProSafe VPN Firewall (since i don't have ISA server)

I hope that i've covered everything, but don't know for sure...does
this look like a pretty good setup or am I missing something?

jared

[Cliff Galiher]

I gotta be honest, spec-ing a server is a very personal thing. How you use
your server can be *very* different than how I use mine, so someone saying
"yeah, that looks good" won't mean much. It'll mean even less if, in three
years, you are again strained for space and you have to explain to your
bosses that you miscalculated the server usage. As you said, you don't want
to "get it wrong" and "a guy on the intertubes told me that my specs looked
good!" won't cut it.

I've long been an evangelist for "trending" even on small servers. Simple
packages like Spiceworks still generate enough data for an IT person to get
an idea on growth patterns and therefore more accurately predict usage for 3
to 5 years. If you have *any* tracking on your server, refer to that data.
Even the simple windows performance counters could be helpful if you haven't
implemented anything.

With all of that said, at first blush your box seems fine. With a single
processor, don't be expecting to do too much: no virtualization, no 3rd
party apps...but being I don't recommend 3rd-party apps on the main SBS
server anyways, that may not be much of a drawback.

As long as your question is as open-ended as it is, I'll also share one
other habit I've gotten into. When possible, I like to go with the 1U
servers and a disk controller with an external connector (the iR series
doesn't have them). The 1U server will just have a mirrored pair of drives
for the OS, and all data goes into an external array such as one of the
PowerVault systems. Easier to expand in the futrue if you find you missed
your target on disk growth and easier to move the array to a new server with
future upgrades or hardware failures. Just a thought...

-Cliff

"Jaredean" <sh...@prolook.com> wrote in message
news:4e15j51ck10vj1mig...@4ax.com...

[Leythos]

In article <4e15j51ck10vj1mig...@4ax.com>,
sh...@prolook.com says...

> I've had them setup the system with 2 RAID 1 groups - one for OS and
> one for Data...i didn't want to do Raid 5, cause the drives seem
> like they are contstantly spinning...i don't feel i get enough
> of a speed increase anyway...maybe i'm wrong
>

If you want speed and redundancy then do a RAID 0+1, since the Perc 6
won't do a RAID 1+0.

Order 4 x 1GB Drives, create a RAID 0 across two of them, then mirror
each drive to one of the remaining drives.

--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
spam9...@rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)

[Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]]

My only other comment would be that I like to put Exchange on its own
partition, primarily to keep other data from overrunning the available free
space and shutting down Exchange.

"Cliff Galiher" <cgal...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23KA39IE...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

I personally like 2Procs :)

--

Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
30% OFF Microsoft Online Services -
http://www.microsoft-online-services.com/

"Jaredean" <sh...@prolook.com> wrote in message
news:4e15j51ck10vj1mig...@4ax.com...

[Jaredean]

thanks Cliff, i do agree and was planning on partitioning the D: drive
into an Exchange and data partition...

what size do you have for your exchange partition? i know the limit
on SBS being 75 gig, but i also remember when it was less before a SP
on 2003 i believe made that larger...so, who knows if 2008 will stay
at 75 gig for its lifetime...i was thinking 150 gig for the exchange
partition...

jared

[Jaredean]

Thanks for your comments, i appreciate them and agree, although also
find that putting it out there to you guys gives me things i didn't
think about...

I did concider the 1U, but getting the most for my limited budget was
the goal and the cost of the 1U would have put me up a few more 0's
when all was said and done...

jared

[Jaredean]

But then doesn't that defeat what i'm trying to do by having 2 logical
drives - one for OS and one for Data...if i stripe 2 drives they are
seen as one and then i mirror them i stil only have 1...is that
correct or am i missing something?

jared

On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:29:39 -0500, Leythos <spam9...@rrohio.com>
wrote:

[Jaredean]

yeah, that's the one thing that is nagging me - i really think i'll
add a second...the other thing is as i think about it i might go with
the 1.5 TB drives for data...

Thanks Russ and Merry Christmas!

jared

[Leythos]

In article <8rbcj5t5fh3m24ds8...@4ax.com>,
sh...@prolook.com says...

> But then doesn't that defeat what i'm trying to do by having 2 logical
> drives - one for OS and one for Data...if i stripe 2 drives they are
> seen as one and then i mirror them i stil only have 1...is that
> correct or am i missing something?
>

If you have 4 physical drives and do a RAID 0+1 or 1+0, you have one
large array set, you can partition the array as needed, giving you two
drives as far as the OS is concerned, but you get the SPEED and
REDUNDANCY of 0+1 /1+0.

Some of the Dell Controllers let you join virtual arrays, but you really
need to be careful when you build a single array that exceeds 4TB, even
with 64bit - the max physical array, if you're booting from it, is 4TB
size.