I've been asked to build a server

[Nothinman]

I've used Dell's next day on site support many times, both for my laptop and my servers. The 2 times they have come out for the servers, they threw everything and the kitchen sink into the request, as they felt they couldn't isolate it down to a component after being on the phone for about 20 minutes with me. That meant MB, backplane, 2 procs, memory, pretty much everything. The tech showed up at the datacenter, I had pulled it out of the rack, they did their magic and were gone within about 2 hours.

The only instance I can think of right now was with a demo box they had sent us that they ended up doing the same thing but piece by piece instead of all at once because it took them that long to decide that they couldn't isolate the problem. And IIRC the first time they sent someone one site he ended up being a salesman instead of a tech so nothing got done that day. Obviously our experience with HP wasn't flawless either (I will never recommend an Itanic box to anyone and HP was the only company we bought a few from) but they were better and the hardware (i.e. cciss vs perc) was much better.

 

[Martyuk39]

Thanks very much for all the help. I've selected the company I'm going to get a server from - Evesham in the UK. It's still a bit irritating - they're insisting that in order to have SAS drives I need the system that has an onboard SAS controller - I've no intention of using any onboard controller - I always use add-on cards. So I dpn't need onboard SAS under any circumstance. It's about $300 difference for a feature I don't want) But apart from that I think I'm set.

 

[Nothinman]

I've no intention of using any onboard controller - I always use add-on cards.

Why? The only possible benefit would be that you could replace the card without replacing the motherboard but that's pretty minor IMO.

 

[nweaver]

I would just use onboard, as long as it's a reliable chipset. If it's a server class machine, it should be fine.

 

[Martyuk39]

Does it not limit you to 2 disks? Unless I'm missing something. Actually 4 disks, because it supports RAID 10. But wouldn't RAID 5 be a reasonable option to have?

I'd kind of assumed perhaps naively that the onboard controller on a $300 motherboard wouldn't give as good a performance as with a $300 specialist card.

 

[nweaver]

I don't know, I don't know that MB or controller, but it's a pretty poor statement to assume that add in > onboard. As a general rule, you can't state that. 4 drives will do Raid5+1 (raid 5 with a hotspare).

 

[Nothinman]

It really depends on the card, some will be better because they support more drives, have battery backed memory, etc but it's not a given that it's better just because it's an add-on card.

And RAID5 isn't always a good idea either, because of the parity it usually has pretty slow write performance so if your database is write heavy you might not want to go that route.

 

[child of wonder]

lol

Someone better tell the company I do consulting for that the two Athlon XP "servers" we have are crap!

 

[mxnerd]

I don't think Navision is write heavy application so RAID 5 should be fine.

http://www.microsoft.com/dynam...v/product/default.mspx

 

[Nothinman]

Someone better tell the company I do consulting for that the two Athlon XP "servers" we have are crap!

They'll find out when one has a hardware problem and it's down for a day.

 

[Martyuk39]

Originally posted by: nweaver
I don't know, I don't know that MB or controller, but it's a pretty poor statement to assume that add in > onboard. As a general rule, you can't state that. 4 drives will do Raid5+1 (raid 5 with a hotspare).

The specs for the onboard RAID say 4 slots, RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10, not RAID 5

RAID 5 is only available in software - now are we all agreed that THAT would be a daft idea?!

 

[Nothinman]

RAID 5 is only available in software - now are we all agreed that THAT would be a daft idea?!

Not really, XOR calculations are pretty simple these days, I'm not using RAID5 here but the RAID6 module here says it can do ~4G/s using sse2 which I'm betting is comparable to any RAID controller you can afford.

 

[Martyuk39]

Not really, XOR calculations are pretty simple these days, I'm not using RAID5 here but the RAID6 module here says it can do ~4G/s using sse2 which I'm betting is comparable to any RAID controller you can afford.

Is notthing sacred? Software RAID is fine? Oh well.

OK - seems like I might as well lose the RAID controller card and just get a pair of disks, and put the saving towards a faster processor.

 

[mxnerd]

Here is another article about RAID 5 will be broker in 2009, a lot of people disagree.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=162

RAID 5 vs RAID 10 performance
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/bil...AID-5-Performance.aspx

forum discussion

http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34982

Everyone has thier own opinion, I think you just have to make your own decision.

I myself probably will just go with RAID 1 with 2 disks and have another disk for spare. Easy, fast enough for 15 people if you use 15K drives, and have an extra disk on hand for insurance.

You can always upgrade to RAID 10 later using the on-board controller. You don't have to do it now.

 

[Nothinman]

Is notthing sacred? Software RAID is fine? Oh well.

Not really and yep software RAID is fine, at least Linux software RAID I can't really speak for Windows. With CPUs getting faster and faster the performance penalty for having them calculate parity is getting smaller and smaller unless you're dealing with CPU bound tasks which isn't the case most of the time. Hell my home directory is AES encrypted via dm-crypt which is much more CPU intensive than RAID5 parity and the speed is fine for day to day use.

The main benefits of hardware RAID today are transparency to the OS, dedicated cache and battery backup for that cache.

Here is another article about RAID 5 will be broker in 2009, a lot of people disagree.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=162

I never put much faith in ZDNet articles, especially their blogs. What he's saying is obviously possible and may have a statistically higher chance of happening in 2009 but nothing is guaranteed.

 

[JackMDS]

Gamer approach toward building a Business Server is Not very functional.

The first issue is to define the specific needs of the type of business and build a system accordingly, putting the emphasis on stable performence, and long run life.

Minute differences in Processor Power and Speed of Hard Drives in most cases are not really important.

 

[tcsenter]

I've selected the company I'm going to get a server from - Evesham in the UK.

Damn...and I spent about 35 minutes on Dell's website yesteday, configuring different BYO PowerEdge servers and Precision workstations to see how much bang we could get for your buck. Oh well..

I'd kind of assumed perhaps naively that the onboard controller on a $300 motherboard wouldn't give as good a performance as with a $300 specialist card.

External general-purpose busses and interfaces often have an inherent throughput, latency, or interrupt service disadvantage over the dedicated internal high-speed hubs and links that integrated controllers are designed to exploit.

It takes a couple generations and several product cycles for the integrated stuff to improve beyond the entry-level consumer features and performance they are initially targeted for. Current offerings from Intel and NVIDIA are bringing fairly good integrated RAID controllers in ICH8R and nForce 500/600 family. They aren't enterprise class but should be more than capable of supporting the load of 15 ~ 20 typical users.

they're insisting that in order to have SAS drives I need the system that has an onboard SAS controller - I've no intention of using any onboard controller - I always use add-on cards.

In this case, since no chipset vendor [to my knowledge] has integrated a SAS controller or interface into their chipset, you're going to get a discrete SAS controller just like those used by add-on cards, in many cases the exact same controller chip (just soldered to the motherboard instead of an add-on board).

One downside to this is that option ROMs for onboard controller chips are almost certainly embedded into the mainboard BIOS, whereas add-on cards typically bring their own BIOS chip that can be flash updated by the end-user as newer BIOS ROMs are released by the chip vendor. With the onboard stuff, you are at the mercy of the mainboard manufacturer for BIOS updates to incorporate any newer option ROMs, unless you (or someone else) know enough about coding to do it.

Very often, the mainboard manufacture will have discontinued BIOS support long before the chip vendor has stopped releasing improved option ROMs or drivers (whether or not there is any demand for the option ROM and driver improvements among that mainboard's installed base).

 

[Martyuk39]

Dear tscenter - thanks very much for all your effort - that was fantastic!

OK, so if I've understood correctly...quite often onboard chipsets use in effect the same controller as add-on cards, and performance is going to be pretty useful anyway. With the possible disadvantage of lack of BIOS updates further down the line.

On balance I think I'll go for onboard. Here's the spec I've had a quotation for. So if I lose the Megaraid controller I was thinking of going for a higher spec processor.

Intel 5110 (DC1.6GHz) 1066MHz 4MB Cache Xeon Processor (Active)
Intel S5000VSASATA Dual Xeon Server Mainboard with integrated LAN
Integrated On-Board 16MB ATI Video Controller
4GB FBD 667MHz ECC Memory
Pedestal Intel 5299DP chassis with 550watt PFC PSU
2 Internal Cooling Fans
Fixed 5.25" Bay 1 - Black DVD-ROM Drive
Sony AIT-1 Turbo (40/100GB) ATAPI Tape Drive
MegaRaid SAS 8308-ELP Raid Controller Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50
6 Hot Swap SAS\SATA Drive Container
Hard Drive Bay 1 - 73GB 15K SAS Hard Drive
Hard Drive Bay 2 - 73GB 15K SAS Hard Drive

 

[Nothinman]

I just stumbled upon this and thought it to be pretty appropriate for this thread.

 

[Martyuk39]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I just stumbled upon this and thought it to be pretty appropriate for this thread.

Thanks - that was very informative. I've been emailed pretty detailed specifications and engineering reports from Evesham, the company whom I'm going to get the server, and I'm happy with them. I'm not sure which camp they fall into - the name brand or the white box brigade. But I'm satisfied with it. To satisfy my penny-pinching requirements it's about £300 cheaper than the online configurator

My order currently includes a RAID controller - it appears to be swings and roundabouts - I can't make my mind up on that one.

Pro - more expansion possibilities
Pro - battery backup available
Con - cost

Unknown - whether or not it'll give performance benefits.

I am going to adopt mxnerd's advice - have 2 disks in RAID 1 and have another disk spare.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Martyuk39
Here is the message - please please ignore the self-build v HP/Dell, OK?

What are the recommendations for:

1. processor
2. RAM
3. disk system

The Dell configurator is unbalanced - its default is a quad core Xeon processor, 512MB RAM and an 80GB SATA disk if you're lucky. That's ridiculous.

That's what I would like advice on, given the uses I have mentioned several times. I do not want advice on the merits/folly of self-build. Thanks

1. xeon rock for servers
2. if youre doing terminal services on it, get a much as you can pack in there. im setting up a blade server system now with 45 clients possible, and im putting 4gb in it
3. to me thats pretty much up to what you prefer.

also, if youre going to use this as a terminal server, dont use it as your DC as well. youll want another server on the network to act as your terminal server license holder too.

as for self build, if you know how, do it. the only downfall to building a server is not knowing the difference between what a server needs and what a workstation needs. i built my first domain controller out of an old workstation, complete with 1ghz p3 and 512 ram. shared video. winders told me that it needed more ram to install, so i upped that to 768 (cheap boss at the time, didnt see the need for a server. his story changed afterwards tho, and allotted me a 5k budget for a real server). that server controlled our management, accounting and design software for 3 years before i got the budget to get me a real server. even tho that sucker was stable and reliable, it wasnt a real server. i got luccky it lasted as long as it did, and when the time came i went and bought a built server, just to make sure it wasnt gimped by my own lack of knowledge. cliffs? if you know how to build a server, go ahead and do it. if you dont want the hassle and want to be able to call someone else when it breaks, buy a premade.

 

[Martyuk39]

Well I'm getting a pre-made. I'm going for onboard raid, 4GB and probably a quad xeon.

Thanks for all your help

 

[vorgusa]

Did you decide on what type of Raid you were going to use? I would think that unless you are using RAID 5 or 6 that onboard would be fine, since you would need the hardware acceleration for RAID 5/6.

 

[Martyuk39]

Originally posted by: vorgusa
Did you decide on what type of Raid you were going to use? I would think that unless you are using RAID 5 or 6 that onboard would be fine, since you would need the hardware acceleration for RAID 5/6.

My plan is to use just 2 disks, RAID 1, and have another as a spare

 

[vorgusa]

lol.. so after all that talk about SCSI and SAS you just decided not to go for a raid that increases performance.