Help me build a Workstation Server - $5-6K

T

thevelourfog

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 6, 2005
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1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Will host a "BIM Cloud" with 4-6 Virtual Machines for the architecture firm I work for. Users will be doing AutoCAD, Revit, Photoshop primarily. Clients will use old (or cheap) PCs to connect to this local server hosing the VMs. It's all going to be setup by another company. Infrastructure won't be a problem.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
About 5-6k
3) Where do you live?
Southern California
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
A single 4 or 6 core Xeon over 3 GHz (must have hyper-v), A DX10+ video card with remote fx, SSD RAID-0 (3x 128GB or 2x 256GB), at least 48GB RAM, Rack Mount Case, Redundant Power Supply, Any misc hardware such as rails for the case, DVD, ect.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None
6) Will you be overclocking?
No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
N/A
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
A month maybe?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
(Intel) RAID, Dual Intel NIC (one for VMs, one for SAN with iSCSI)
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, Windows 7 Ultimate will be used for this machine and clients.


It's an unusual machine I guess, but my boss has it in his head that this is a better solution than individual workstations and wants to give it a go. It would likely be cheaper to buy/build i7 machines for individual users...
 
thevelourfog said:
A DX10+ video card with remote fx,

.....
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, Windows 7 Ultimate will be used for this machine and clients.
Click to expand...

In order to use RemoteFX, you have to use Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
 
the thing that sucks about this solution, is that if that server has to have downtime for some reason, everyone is out of commission...
 
If this is a server for a company, I do NOT recommend building your own or having a "custom" job done. Get a server from Dell or HP.
Also, using an end-user version of Windows is a bad idea in this case.
 
Yup I've brought up the issue about downtime and the cons of building something in addition to other downsides. Unfortunately I built a couple of pretty nice workstations and they were half the price of the machines they normally buy.
 
thevelourfog said:
It's an unusual machine I guess, but my boss has it in his head that this is a better solution than individual workstations and wants to give it a go. It would likely be cheaper to buy/build i7 machines for individual users...
Click to expand...

thevelourfog said:
Yup I've brought up the issue about downtime and the cons of building something in addition to other downsides. Unfortunately I built a couple of pretty nice workstations and they were half the price of the machines they normally buy.
Click to expand...

I really hope this is for testing and not going to be put right into production...

If they really want a custom one built, RAID-1 is a must (or since you mentioned RAID-0, try RAID-10), hot spares in the RAID arrays, redundant PSU, and whatever else can be made hot swappable. You may also want to buy cold spares as well. I can't stress enough that RAID-0 should be avoided without being a part of a nested RAID. Does this server/company already have a tape backup system? If not, budget that in. Also, is this server actually storing the data or is that elsewhere on the SAN?

I need to get to work on a few things but I'll try to post back later with some actual hardware. Consider SLC based SSDs over MLC, especially if the server is actually storing the data.
 
Danny Bui said:
In order to use RemoteFX, you have to use Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
Click to expand...

In addition, I have been unable to get AMD's drivers uninstalled in Win Server 2k8. I would lean toward an nVidia video card if you have to do that is slightly graphics intensive.
 
thevelourfog said:
Yup I've brought up the issue about downtime and the cons of building something in addition to other downsides. Unfortunately I built a couple of pretty nice workstations and they were half the price of the machines they normally buy.
Click to expand...

I still think could turn out to be a back idea in a business setting. Anyway, stick with server 2K8R2 with Hyper-V, 64 bit of course. That will give you the option for Hyper-V or VMWare. Personally I recommend VMWare. Though with one box, you won't be doing any kind of HA.
 
Just a note, if you are not paying for SLC-SSD, instead opting for consumer SSD, please consider Intel 320 series due to feature of completing write request in the event of power failure. You are highly recommended to buy multiple units of various size (120/160/300/600GB) and combine them. This ensures most likely they will have different write-wear-out behavior so that you will not have media-wear-out in close succession during runtime, I suppose, though not sure.

I understand you wrote UPS. You may also encounter UPS failure wiping off data at the wrong time. Intel 320 SSD will still complete the remaining write in that scenario. Sorta similar to Hardware RAID Controller with battery-backed write cache.

As pointed out by others, you really need a sound data protection scheme in case you are set on very basic single layer RAID-0 layout, unless you are purely using it as scratch area and store data on other well-redundant-constructed file storage area. Considering this is "architecture firm" maybe it is worth consideration to invest slightly more into more well-rounded setup.

Cheers
 
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