Bubblegum Bandit April 14, 2004 Share Bubblegum Bandit Member April 14, 2004 I need to pick some brains guys. I have a friend who's father owns a contracting company. He wants to run his own server for his business. I don't have all the details but here's what I have so far.....Dell wants $7000 for what they say he needs to do this, so he asked me if I could build him one. I have no problem building it, but I don't know what the minimum specs should be based on the usage. Basically he wants to use it as a data and web server. He wants to be able to host a company website and have approximately 50 e-mail accounts. The comany uses Access and his words "a large database" for their data. Based on this, I know its not much info, I have put in a request for more info, can you give me minimum specs I should use on this server? I'm already planning on running the hds in a raid format for redundancy, but I guess I'm wondering about processor and RAM. How much of each do you think he should need? Thanks for your help, Bub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullet-401 April 14, 2004 Share bullet-401 Member April 14, 2004 (edited) 1.5-2 gigs of ram maybe? and a pentium probly 3.0 and up. Anyone else have any other opinions? *EDIT* oh yeah and a server mobo that holds that much ram. Edited April 14, 2004 by bullet-401 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Playaa April 14, 2004 Share Playaa Member April 14, 2004 I'd hafta agree with bullet...although...maybe go with 64bit processor for future anyway? and it's possible some of the programs their useing may be programmed for it already... oh, and tell the man to stop using Access for "large databases" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL April 14, 2004 Share dwEEziL Member April 14, 2004 (edited) How big is the company? Most "servers" don't need smokin' CPUs, esp. if this will primarily be a webserver. What you want is RAID and Ram. It would probably be best to go with a Dell Server. I just configured one up with 2 2.4 CPUs, 2GB of RAM, 7-36GB 15K SCSI HDs, and redundant power supplies and it was almost $7K. You could save some by buying the minimum amount of RAM from Dell and then buying what you want from Crucial or you could adjust the RAID setup and get less/smaller HDs. In the long run, I feel it is easier to buy a server-class machine than it would be to make one yourself. Edited April 14, 2004 by dwEEziL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX April 14, 2004 Share NOFX Member April 14, 2004 i agree with dweez on the parts of the machine your looking for... CPU is not as import as RAID/ RAM I would probably have a RAID 0 and a RAID 1 setup with at least 2 gigs of ram and probably a dual processor mobo. 7k seems a little pricey for one machine. Store bought- "dude you have a dell" + Winserve2k3 and other software you are buying 7k homebuilt - The cost you put into the machine, Install linux - priceless Access is terrible for "Large Databases". MySql is better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Kill3r April 14, 2004 Share All Kill3r Member April 14, 2004 (edited) build it for 7k. Quad opterons and 4gigs of ram. 9200se agp card, few raptors in Raid 0. Hand him back a few K and head to the bar. Edited April 14, 2004 by All Kill3r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubblegum Bandit April 14, 2004 Author Share Bubblegum Bandit Member April 14, 2004 Thanks for the info guys.....the programs he's running are not my call, he just wants me to build the machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
appalachian_fox April 14, 2004 Share appalachian_fox Member April 14, 2004 I'd have to agree with Dweez on this...I deal with several of these beasts, and I think with the trouble you're going to put yourself through getting it all together it wouldn't be worth your time. Furthermore, if the Dell machine craps out for whatever reason, he can go to Dell. If your machine craps out for whatever reason...Best not being stuck as "the computer guy". Also, to put in an honest-to-goodness server, you definitely need more information (which you have already requested). I know someone already covered this, but servers are not "big processor behemoths" -- they are a very crucial being that requires a proper balance of the right equipment. Remember, if you get a BSoD, you reboot and go on with their lives. If they get a BSoD, they could potentially lose business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redeyez April 15, 2004 Share redeyez Member April 15, 2004 can you sneak hl in there and run us a server? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer April 15, 2004 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member April 15, 2004 Sounds like a job for a multi-cpu Opteron setup. You may want to check out the AMDmb.com Multiprocessor forum. I've peeked in there a little and guys ask these type of questions and get pretty good answers. Anandtech did an enterprise evaluation of the Opteron vs. Xeon a while back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Birdman April 15, 2004 Share Birdman Member April 15, 2004 I say just go with compaq/dell. But if you were to build it would have to be an SMP system with low end Xeon's or Opteron's. Tyan mobo that has plenty of 64bit PCI slots. 10-15K SCSI Ultra 360 Drives in Raid 5 that can be hot swapped. Redundant Power. 1-2Gigs of Ram. Lots of Cooling. Huge Tower that Supports Hot swappable power/Hard Drives, or a Rack mount system with similar specs. Then whatever kinda network cards they are gonna need. Windows Server 2003 or whatever teh man wants to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL April 15, 2004 Share dwEEziL Member April 15, 2004 Another inticing fact about buying from Dell is their warranty. I deal with a lot of servers at work (we mostly get IBM Netfinity's and Dell PowerEdge) and it is nice to know that if a CPU, Ram stick, or HD goes bad, I can have another within 4-hours (that is the support we got) to replace it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
appalachian_fox April 16, 2004 Share appalachian_fox Member April 16, 2004 Yeah, I gotta say, I've had great experience with Dell technical support. The customer service is so-so, but the tech support is spot-on. Two examples, I had a Powervault POS (not point-of-sale) 715 server which had a habit of not working well for people. Their answer? Send us a brand-spankin'-new PV725N. The thing is rock-solid and was worth a bit more. Also, I just had a laptop that crapped out on us the first week (!) we had it. The phone tech couldn't diagnose exactly what was wrong (obviously Mobo, RAM, video card...something of that nature) so they sent out the tech, shipped all the parts, and he replaced them ALL. Brand new guts. And it all happened so fast. I don't think I can stress this enough...You DON'T want to be that "computer guy"...unless he's going to buy a service contract from you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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