Hardware for SBS

[Rison]

As everyone else said, going with a Dell or HP server is the best bet. Redundant hard drives and access to hardware during a failure are the biggest reasons.
I would probably spec out a dual socket xeon 1366 board, with a single 6 core E5649 (or 5645) with 16GB DDR3 ECC on the server, with dual 143GB SAS in RAID1, and 4x 300GB 10k SAS in RAID5.

You would still be looking at the $5k range. If your CEO doesn't understand the cost of doing business, it's your job to enlighten him/her on the differences of cheap servers and what they should be purchasing.
Also, I don't think it has been mentioned, but along side of all the other benefits of SBS2008/2011, there is remote web workplace, which enables users to work from home at their desktops. Always a fun selling feature when you talk to "the boss". Yeah, more productivity.. always a good selling feature.
Couple that with centralized anti-virus, exchange, backups, etc.. it's usually an easy sell for non-tightwads.
And I never recommend office365 - have you read the disclaimers? most companies wouldn't want their office documents resold on the open market due to legal loopholes.

 

[D-EJ915]

If you get SBS2011 Premium it comes with a second 2008R2 license. Also it lets you access shared files over the Remote Web Workplace which is pretty convenient. My only recommendation for hardware is get a real raid controller with a battery cache backup and as much ram as you can possibly get.

http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/editions-overview.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/licensing.aspx

 

[V4705]

Thanks for the help guys! I got the T410, dual Xeon processor(s), 24gb, 146gb(x2, raid1) 450gb(x3, raid5) and SBS 2011.

I worked with Windows server 2003 in 2007-2008 but I believe a lot changed since than and I forgot few things. Can you recommend me a basic knowledge source for SBS starters to make my life a little bit easier on the first installation?


Thanks again, you really did helped me a lot!

 

[swatbat]

Thanks for the help guys! I got the T410, dual Xeon processor(s), 24gb, 146gb(x2, raid1) 450gb(x3, raid5) and SBS 2011.

I worked with Windows server 2003 in 2007-2008 but I believe a lot changed since than and I forgot few things. Can you recommend me a basic knowledge source for SBS starters to make my life a little bit easier on the first installation?


Thanks again, you really did helped me a lot!

I like the unleased books but I don't think they have one for 2011 yet.

Anyway the key with the newer sbs boxes is use the sbs console. Anything that can be done via that console needs to be done via that console.

 

[D-EJ915]

Also tell SBS to store the data on the data disk instead of the system disk, it will put everything (sharepoint, exchange, redirected folders, etc.) on the C drive which is ridiculous.

 

[swatbat]

Also tell SBS to store the data on the data disk instead of the system disk, it will put everything (sharepoint, exchange, redirected folders, etc.) on the C drive which is ridiculous.

Yea but use the sbs console to move them.