**Building a database server, need help configuring**

[Xcellere]

Our company is starting a SharePoint project, so we need a server to host its database. I'm quite unfamiliar with server parts, so I'm hoping you guys can suggest some high-end parts for me to put in this thing. Maybe SCSI drives, dual CPUs? Fill me in.

 

[JackMDS]

Hmm.... SharePoint server is not a gaming rig, SCSI or not, dual CPU, or not, is the last thing to worry about.

Share Point comes on top of Windows 2003 server OS.

So your first mission is to find info about the optimal need of Windows 2003.

You probably are better off buying a reliable sever from HP, or Dell, or at least log to their server offering and see what is the level of the hardware that they use.

 

[RebateMonger]

Is this same server hosting both the database AND the SharePoint web sites? If it's only hosting the database, then your biggest bottleneck could be the disk system. But that, obviously, depends on exactly HOW much data activity is required. A SharePoint site that's only accessed occasionally by ten people will have different disk needs than a site that's serving a thousand people simultaneously.

How much data is cacheable will affect your disk needs, too. ISA 2004 or other caching proxy servers, for instance, can serve cached data to clients and they may not need to hit your disks as much.

 

[TechBoyJK]

What is your budget for licensing? Can you work with two servers instead of one?

As already mentioned, with databases, your bottle neck will probably be your hard drives.

If this is a critical server, then the drives need to be redundant, and if speed is important, then you need to seperate your data, logs, and backups onto different disks. which can get pricey. You are better off spending resources to acquire a good disk arrangement than necessarilly a fast cpu or multiple cpu's and alot of ram.