Server Hardware Help

[tyanni]

I'll be the first to admit I'm over my head with regards to this, so hopefully one of you can help me. I've always been a desktop support person, and am now making the transition to more of a sys admin for my department. I've been asked to setup a server for a database server running ms sql. DB will be relatively small (maybe a couple hundred mb max), and the max number of connections is probably 20-30 at any time, but should be able to easily handle up to 200 if needed.

Questions:

What RAID to use? i am leaning towards RAID1.

Two arrays, one for OS and one for DB? Dell doesn't seem to offer one card with two internal channels, so I'd probably need to use two cards... Not sure also if two arrays is necessary or if one RAID1 array for both os and sql would work.

Hardware? Will one dual core xeon work, or do i need dual cpus?

Good guide to RAID somewhere?

Help!
Tim

 

[Vegito]

I believe x2 are faster than Xeons.. I wouldn't really touch Xeons anymore as X2 are cheaper.. but only opteron has pcix slots

DB I would use Raid 1, raid 5 write are slow, its fast with caching cards but they are expensive.

RAID 1 - OS
RAID 1 - SQL DB
RAID 1 - SQL LOGs

I would put db & log on separate drives... since you have a small db, 36 gb 15k would do..

Dell does offer single card dual channel, they're call PERC X / DC (Dual int/ext) or Di (dual internal only)

Too bad dell doesn't offer AMDs ...

 

[Viditor]

I would suggest Raid 5. It allows for the speed, and it also has good redundancy (rebuilding an array in the case of a drive failure is fairly simple in Raid 5).

Is it necessary to use Dell? The current Xeon offerings are quite poor...

 

[ND40oz]

I'd go with an HP DL380, buy the write back cache for the scsi contoller and put your os on a 2 disk raid 1 array and use the other channel for a 3 disk raid 5 array and place your db on that drive. It's what we use for our smaller dbs. I'd buy two separate xeons single core processors. We just priced out two DL580s with 4 3.0 gig xeons with the 8 meg cache, it was the same price as 2 dual core 3.0 gig xeons with the 4 meg cache. The 4 separate processors will perform better at db work then the 2 dual core, same thing in your case. Also, the HP DL385 is the same, just with opterons, if you want to go the AMD route.

 

[Vegito]

It really depends on what you're doing on the SQL DB

RAID 1 will always have superior write ability compared to RAID 5 RAID 1 has no parity calculation.

Broken RAID5 array will result in higher performance penality than a RAID1. That parity will kill you. Its easier for RAID 1 with 1 hot spare. which is simlar to running 3 drive for a RAID 5.

RAID5 just has better read but it depends what your doing on your SQL, if you're doing more writes than read, I would say RAID 1, if your doing more READ, RAID 5

 

[Vegito]

Article..

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/ate...89625,sid5_cid619546_tax296041,00.html


RAID 5 is better suited for mostly read-oriented applications. Because RAID 5 has to write parity information for each block of data it writes to the RAID set, it is not well suited for applications that are "write intensive" such as some transactional databases. It should also be noted that RAID 5 alone does not provide multiple-drive failure protection.

 

[tyanni]

Wow - lots to consider. Budget wise, it looks like two RAID1 arrays might be the best bet - one for the OS and One for the DB. Any thoughts on running an intranet or other app on this too?

Also, unfortunately Dell is the only option - we get special pricing on them.

 

[Czar]

Hp dl380 definetly. Or actually for this sortof a database you might want to start with their 1u servers, get two 36gb scsi disks and run with that.
If there is need then go with something larger like the dl380, for 20-30 users you dont need that much.

Or to really impress your peers. Get a dl380, 2x 36gb disks for OS. 4x 74gb for data in raid 5 setup. Get VMWare ESX Server and run the sql server as a virtual machine. Then you can easily add other servers to the computer. Oh and get the dualcore amd version

Thats my plan at work, already running one dl380 with one xeon cpu and 2gb ram using the GSX server. So far so good, 2 web servers and 1 mssql server. Plan is then to add a ESX server to the intranet (other one running internet websites) because then you can get the backup program which can backup running virtual machines on the fly.

Or I might go with ibm blades and use our shark san for data, way more expensive but... vmotion is just too tempting


edt... I always confuse esx and gsx :Q


I love vmware

 

[azev]

Czar I agree with you, VMware Rocks, especially ESXserver. Anyway, nobody here mention raid 0+1. I think that is the fastest read and write raid that you can get with minimum 4 drives and only half the capacity total. Like everyone here said, get a server with dual proc (for future growth), plenty of memory, and dual channel raid for your OS and your db.

 

[tyanni]

czar - at this point I will probably stick with Dell and go with the dual zeon option and dual RAID1 arrays, one for the OS and one for the DB\Data. However, at some point in the future I need to setup a test server and also a Altiris or Landesk server - I may talk to you then since I like the idea of VMWARE and virtual servers.

Tim

 

[phaxmohdem]

As much as we all "Love" Dell here, a lower end dual Xeon server should be just fine. I'd configure the following for your needs:

Dell 2850 Series:

Dual Intel Xeon 2.8gHz 2MB CPU's
2GB RAM (2x1GB)
73GB U320 10K SCSI Drives (x3 in Raid-5)

Should come out around $5K depending how you configure it. Also do you need Rackmount hardware or tower chassis? I wouldn't mess with two RAID 1 arrays honestly. the above configuration will give you 146GB of redundant storage space to play with, and it will be a bit faster than RAID-1 which is a + for Database applications.

Your DB needs are honestly not very intensive. The above described server specs should suit you fine unless your company quadruples in size very soon, and theres like 300+ users hitting a 1GB+ DB all the time.

Its a shame you can't use the HP Opteron servers, as currently Opterons wipe the floor with Intels offerings for SQL scenarios. Even the lower end opterons are quite adept at DB tasks.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: tyanni
Wow - lots to consider. Budget wise, it looks like two RAID1 arrays might be the best bet - one for the OS and One for the DB. Any thoughts on running an intranet or other app on this too?

Also, unfortunately Dell is the only option - we get special pricing on them.

I kind of figured that was the case...but do yourself a favour and configure a DL385 anyway. Then call HP and tell them what the Dell price is to see if they'll match or beat it...you might be quite surprised! HP is being very aggressive right now to take up as much server marketshare as they can, and as I'm sure you know the Opterons will wipe the floor with them (as well as giving you fewer headaches about heat). If not, the Xeons probably will be sufficient for your current needs.

However, I agree with phaxmodem (and some of the others) that Raid 5 would probably be your better choice...

 

[tyanni]

Viditor - I'll definitely look into RAID5. Anyone know if the PERC4e\DC controller will support 3 drives plus a failover drive? Can't find any documentation on it...

 

[dexvx]

I'm not sure why you even need dual Xeons for such a light load. Given the parameters that he has given, a dual P3 server is more than enough to take care of the processing power required. Memory, Disk, and Network issues are going to be a far larger bottleneck than the CPU.

 

[tyanni]

You can't exactly buy a dual p3 server these days... I could however get a dual xeon and only get one processor, but I like the idea of being able to add other tasks to this server later...