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Building a SBS 2003 server, need advice

H

Hallow

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
183
Current build:

Dell PowerEdge 830
Pentium D 3.0ghz
800mhz FSB mobo
2x2gb PC2-4200 / 533MHz, supports 8gb
C: is on a 40gb drive, 400mb free!!!
250gb in RAID 1 on a RAID card
another 250gb internal
another 1tb external

There are about 12 workstations and around 25 users, about 10 of which are just old email addresses of ex-employees who get their emails forwarded to current employees.

There are also two printers on the network and an FTP exchange.

So as you can tell the C: drive is running critically low on storage and as a result we have to restart the computer at least once a day. I have already bought another 640gb hd and plan to use HDClone or something to clone the current C: onto it and swap them out. That and a couple more sticks of RAM might get us by for a while.

All of my building experience has been building gaming computers, but they have been more than reliable. While shopping for parts on Newegg I have noticed that there are server specific CPUs, mobos, ram, cases, etc., and they all seem to cost up to twice as much as gaming components. Also they are typically produced by manufacturers I have never heard of (with the exception of CPUs). Is this all hype or will gaming components be reliable for what we are doing?

I understand that our server won't be doing any graphics processing and I'll probably just use an old 6600gt that we have laying around, assuming that using a graphics card instead of on-board video will help preserve resources. Also I'm assuming that we should probably get a quad-core CPU, and I won't even consider using AMD.

Our storage situation is way more than adequate and I am considering getting rid of the RAID 1 array and just backing up to the external every night.

I am still not sure whether I want to switch to a rack-mount chassis, which would look awesome, but we are a small company with small needs so I don't know. We do have another tower server for our phones, but that's it.

My main question is what kind of mobo/CPU combo to focus on? Server-specific components or will the cheaper gaming-specific components suffice? I have around $1000 to spend on a cpu, mobo, 8gb ram(16gb?), and maybe a PSU and case.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

After looking around a bit I am curious whether to go single socket 775 or dual 771? Overkill? Opinions?
 
I would really look at buying a server from Dell or HP to be honest. I would also make sure you RAID everything and have a propper backup.
 
I think you are getting to the point where you should really consider purchasing a "real" server from HP or Dell. Personally, I like HP servers better. You should have all of your drives RAIDed. I stay away from SATA drives for an SBS server. Look at getting a bunch of SAS drives configured in RAID5 for speed and redundancy. The nice thing about having a real RAID controller and RAID 5 is you can simple add additional drives and expand the array onto the new drive, all while the server is running and without down time or data failure.

I would really recommend against rolling your own server. With the HP/Dell servers you are going to get a 3-year warranty to cover component failure. Redundant fans and PSUs, etc. You also get a proven platform and other support options.

$1000 is not going to buy your a "real" server. It will buy you some parts that you can toss into a box and call a server, you can even make it run a server operating system and make it "serve" things. You can polish a turd, but be careful, if you polish too much all you'll have left is a dirty towel and a peanut.....
 
I would just like to add that ALL your servers should be RAID as well.

Also when you do your drive cloning, you migh run into blue screens due to the fact that the old and new server will have two different raid cards and drivers.
 
Don't build a cloner as a server for a business. Leave cloner "motherboard of the month" boxes for home.

With a 40 gig C drive, if it's running low on space with SBS...you have a few very easy fixes at hand...a few minutes time, a reboot...and BAM..should have a good 20 gigs free.
Move the pagefile.sys to the 2nd partition
Move the Exchange InfoStore to the 2nd partition
Move the users shared folders to the 2nd partition
Same for the Client Apps

Sounds like whoever un buckled the server just took all the defaults during the install without thinking...which puts all the data on your C drive. A common mistake I see a lot.
 
listen to these guys, they really know what they are talking about... they helped me get my sbs box setup, and it's running really well...

we went for a poweredge 2900 in the end - quad core cpu, 4 gigs of ram, proper raid controller running two arrays (2x 73gb 15k sas in raid1 for the base o/s and 3x 73gb 15k sas in raid5 for programs and data), gig networking, remote access card, dual power supplies, a proper backup solution using the rd1000 hot-swap bay and 300gb carts, oh and everything is covered by a proper three year 4-hr on-site warranty. this is now pretty much the baseline we recommend to customers for sbs.

in addition this is also running a full version of sql and an erp line of business application called syspro.

i wouldn't do it any other way. this is for a business... under *no* circumstances should 'gaming' kit be anywhere near here...!

edit: also, make sure you get this behind a ups too!
 
dragontales said:
Also when you do your drive cloning, you migh run into blue screens due to the fact that the old and new server will have two different raid cards and drivers.
Click to expand...

Not if you use Acronis with Universal Restore, the two apps together will make your life soooooooo much easier
 
Keep in mind SBS 2003 only supports 4gb ram , so save your money for other hardware. You might want to consider Dell Outlet. You can generally find some good deals there, and the warranty is just as good.
 
Poweredge 840 or higher.

1950 or 2950 are sexy

let me know if you need Dell gear, i can save you a good amount on servers especially when you buy a server with rd1000 and tapes =)
 
Thanks again, everyone. Sorry for the belated reply, just a lot of other crap going on.

So I figured out the simplest solution, mostly thanks to YeOldeStonecat. What I ended up doing was moving my Exchange databases and logs to my D: drive using the Exchange System Manager(and a little help from the Microsoft support pages). That cleared up about 30gb in the C: drive and should solve the crashing problem for a good long while. Now all of the logs and emails are copying to the D: drive which has 150GB of free space, which is way more than our small company needs. All of that talk about repartitioning or building or buying a new server was completely unnecessary.

What really ticks me off is that we have had four different networking specialists in to work on our server and none of them could figure out how to perform this simple little operation. Either that or they refused to do it and just wanted to suck us dry at $100+/hr. Sheesh! Some people....

Thanks again YeOldeStonecat and fellow [H] folks. You saved me hundreds of dollars and unnecessary down time.
 
YeOldeStonecat, two additional questions: In the Petri guide, after moving the volumes it says to "remount the databases manually". Do you know what that means? I recall the completion messages saying something to the effect that "volumes are mounted." Must I perform a redundant mounting for some reason and if so, how?

Also, I haven't modified the registry yet because it says that it is only necessary if you wish to delete the old MDBdata folder path. Is there any reason to do this or will it be fine if I leave it there. I am not too well versed in the language surrounding registry modification which is the source of my apprehension. TIA
 
Jay_oasis said:
I would really look at buying a server from Dell or HP to be honest. I would also make sure you RAID everything and have a propper backup.
Click to expand...
QFT like so many others: buy Dell or HP.
You get more business-grade hardware. Redundant power supplies, good warranty, etc.

But it looks like you may not need it anymore.

One piece of Advice I could give you, is if you do buy a new server: get away from SBS 2003 as quickly as possible, if you see growth as a possibility. 50 users is about its max, I'm having to deal with this mess myself right now.

Hallow said:
What really ticks me off is that we have had four different networking specialists in to work on our server and none of them could figure out how to perform this simple little operation. Either that or they refused to do it and just wanted to suck us dry at $100+/hr. Sheesh! Some people....
Click to expand...
In my case, the networking specialists were the folks that locked this business into SBS (before my time).
At least they had Exchange and such on D:... But I'm still running out of space on C: being it was only made 20 GB :rolleyes:
 
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