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New server needed. Intel or AMD?

S

sandmanx

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Mar 22, 2001
Messages
9,901
I'm in need of a new server at work. It's going to be running Windows 2000 Server(or 2003 if I can get them to pay for that.) The machine will replace a severely overloaded dual P3 1GHz, 1.4GB RAM machine. This will be running the following:

Exchange Server 2000
AD
DNS
WINS
DHCP
GFI Mailessentials(server side spam filter)
McAfee Groupshield(exchange intergrated virus scanner)
VPN server


That is what the current dual 1GHz box is running, and it needs a reboot about once a week now thanks to using all the ram up. It constantly is using 100% processor time as well.

I know idealy it would be nice to run AD and exchange server on seperate boxes, which if I can get a copy of server 2003, I'll do that, and turn the current box into a file server to replace a dual 600MHz xeon box.

Anyways, I'm looking to spend a max of ~$2500 for the hardware. Features that are needed:

Gbit Ethernet
Raid 5(hardware, either sata or scsi will work)
more than 2GB RAM, 4GB would be nice
A quality PSU and any old case with good airflow

Hard drive space is unimportant, as the current machine has 74GB and it's plenty. I would like 4 hard drives though, 3 for a raid 5 setup, and 1 hot spare.

I priced out a dual Opteron at zipzoomfly, and it came in slightly under $2600 for a pair of Opteron 244s, Tyan Thunder K8W S2885 board, 4GB Patriot RAM, cheap cd-rom, Antec case with a 550 Truepower PSU, Highpoint Sata raid card, 4 74GB Raptors, and a cheap agp card. They didn't have any dual xeon boards, so I haven't priced it yet.

One other thing, I will not be buying from newegg. They wouldn't work with us over a problem with a $39 Duron proc on a $12,000 order, so we no longer do any business with them.

Thanks for any help/suggestions if you happen to read through this monster post. :D
 
Dell has a very good deal on the Poweredge 2800. Right now you get free processor upgrade and free second processor. You also get free second hard disk.

So right now you can get
2 Xeon 3.0ghz 2mb
1 GB ddr2
embedded hardware raid controller
8 drive hotswap backplane attached to the raid
dual gigabit nics
36gb 15k
73gb 10k
dual reduant power supplies

with no os for 1727

If you drop the onboard raid and just the scsi that saves 300 from the price. You can also pick up another gig of ram for about $100 from new. That is a pretty decent price considering what you are getting. It would not be possible to build the same system for that price.
 
If capacity is irrelevant and you're building a server, you need SCSI hard disks, pure and simple. Raptor doesn't get it done on a server. Here's a SR comparison of MAS, Atlas 15K II, WD740GD, and Atlas 10K IV. Either of the 15K drives will be around 50% faster in your server work, and given that the number of spindles matters, not capacity, be cheaper. You can get four Atlas 15K drives for $116 each on ZZF, although admittedly only 18GB drives. 18GB MAS units are $120 a pop.
 
You didn't tell us what the old machine is overloaded with.

In general Opterons are nice, fast and reliable. If you go for enough RAM, PCI-X controllers and good harddrives you will not have any bottlenecks, except maybe CPU, the 244 are not that fast.
 
Martin Cracauer said:
You didn't tell us what the old machine is overloaded with.

In general Opterons are nice, fast and reliable. If you go for enough RAM, PCI-X controllers and good harddrives you will not have any bottlenecks, except maybe CPU, the 244 are not that fast.
Click to expand...

Both memory usage and processor usage. Upgrading it is a bandaid at best, since the max the machine supports(Dell Poweredge 1400SC) is 2GB of RAM and 1.4GHz P3s. It would cost more than it's worth to upgrade.

draksia: thanks for the heads up on that deal. I'm trying to push it through, and get a 2GB ram kit from crucial for $455. I plan to get it shipped with 2 73GB drives, mirror those as a boot drive, and then grab 4 of the 18GB drives from zzf that douglite mentioned to put our exchange data on. It should keep within my budget and those 3.0GHz 2mb cache procs would be really nice.
 
Josh_B said:
AD runs MUCH faster on Opterons w/2003 x64. ;)
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go with 64-bit 2003 for AD just yet. I feel it's not as stable as 2003.. jmo.

if you can prove me wrong, I'm all ears :)
 
Stang Man said:
I wouldn't go with 64-bit 2003 for AD just yet. I feel it's not as stable as 2003.. jmo.

if you can prove me wrong, I'm all ears :)
Click to expand...

I administrate a fairly decent size AD and I agree. I wouldn't trust 64bit AD servers just yet. I've had some application difficulies and driver issues out of the regualr 64bit XP Pro. I am not ready to fight with that on the server side just yet.

I have no experience with 2003 server 64 and AD, but It hasn't proven itself over the long haul yet. Plus, if not all your servers can run 64bit Server 2003, I don't know if you'll have any issues with AD replication and 32 bit versions of the OS running AD.
 
Another vote for Dell on the basis that they're frequently low priced and reduced headaches in the event something breaks.
 
Well, I ended up getting the Dell for a touch over $1800. Now I'll upgrade to 2GB of ram from crucial and 4 drives from zzf and have a nice, useable server. They are EM64T enabled processors, but for the time being, it will still be running Windows 2000 Server, which will make upgrading to more memory pointless until an OS upgrade.

I'm still planning mirroring(Raid 1) the 74GB drives for boot, and Raid 5 for the 4 others and making one a hot spare, which will give me 36GB of storage for exchange server, which is more than enough.

u_m: Raid 5 is more fault tollerant than 0+1, so that's why I'm going to use it that way. The Raid 1 array I'm running is just for the boot drive, so performance isn't important, I just want to be covered if a drive takes a dump.
 
Windows 2000 Server can use more than 2GB of ram. Just like XP, the problem is you only get between 3.1 and 3.3GB of useable memory if you install 4GB of ram. Up to 3GB and your fine.

That's an issue with the memory a 32bit processor can address. In long mode (64bit) the processors can address much more. However 2GB may suit your needs reguardless.
 
I know idealy it would be nice to run AD and exchange server on seperate boxes, which if I can get a copy of server 2003, I'll do that, and turn the current box into a file server to replace a dual 600MHz xeon box.
Click to expand...

Thats probably the best bet.

Since its a server, have you thought about a name brand provider? I'm not so sure a custom built server in a business environment is such a good idea. With the warrenty and support provided by manufacturers like Dell and HP, you really can't go wrong. Sure you may pay a little more, but you have all the support tools you'll need.

 
sandmanx said:
u_m: Raid 5 is more fault tollerant than 0+1, so that's why I'm going to use it that way.
Click to expand...
In what way is it more fault tolerant? If you lose a drive in a raid 5 array, you're down to a raid 0 (basically, if you ignore all the technicalities). If you lose *any* other disk, you lose data; hope you have a backup plan.

If you lose a drive in a 0+1 array, you've got an intact mirror and one disk. Two out of the three disks remaining could go down without you losing data. Only if you lose the odd disk out (which was mirrored with the first dead disk) will you have to go to backups.

And look at write speeds, too; raid 5 on a really good controller can *almost* get up to the speeds of 0+1; check this page out. If you plan to add a $500 raid card, then raid 5 performance will be up to par with 0+1.

But hey, it's your server. What do I know ;)

 
unhappy_mage said:
If you lose a drive in a 0+1 array, you've got an intact mirror and one disk. Two out of the three disks remaining could go down without you losing data. Only if you lose the odd disk out (which was mirrored with the first dead disk) will you have to go to backups.
Click to expand...
No
In a RAID 0+1 configuration, the loss of any drive in a set causes the failure of that entire set and the set is removed from the RAID system. This means you are left with a RAID 0 system made up of the remaining set of disks.
See http://www.acnc.com/04_01_0_1.html
for a visual representation.
In a RAID 1+0, you can lose a drive from both sides of the mirror, but not two drives from the same side of the mirror.
 
unhappy_mage said:
In what way is it more fault tolerant? If you lose a drive in a raid 5 array, you're down to a raid 0 (basically, if you ignore all the technicalities). If you lose *any* other disk, you lose data; hope you have a backup plan.

If you lose a drive in a 0+1 array, you've got an intact mirror and one disk. Two out of the three disks remaining could go down without you losing data. Only if you lose the odd disk out (which was mirrored with the first dead disk) will you have to go to backups.

And look at write speeds, too; raid 5 on a really good controller can *almost* get up to the speeds of 0+1; check this page out. If you plan to add a $500 raid card, then raid 5 performance will be up to par with 0+1.

But hey, it's your server. What do I know ;)

Click to expand...

Hmmm, I'll research the pages you linked tomorrow at work and see. I've always used Raid 5 with a hot spare though. This allows you to strip 3(or more) disks together, and have one(or more) disk ready to take over if one takes a crap. I'm sure it's not the fastest array around, but it's quick enough for my purposes, and the hot spare has saved my ass on multiple occations before. The only time you would loose this config is if 2 disks that are in the active array died at the some time, or if one in the array died, and another disk died while rebuilding to the hot spare, which is just a unlikely as loosing a second disk in a raid 1+0 setup. I've got a couple weeks to work it out, so I'll research everything before I decide.

And I do have a backup plan besides a hard drive array. I'd never run without a net.
:D

PS: in fact, it backs up individual mailboxes and the entire IS every night on my exchange server.
 
on raid 5 vs 1+0 or 0+1

raid 5 gets close at three drives to 1+0 or 0+1 true

raid 5 completely blows away any combo of 1 and 0 you want to put together with 5 or more drives :)

the more drives you add the more write and read heads you add as well.
put 8 drives together in raid 5 and then come back and tell me about that speed advantage of 1+0
:rolleyes:
 
Put 8 drives in RAID-5 together and tell me how it does on frequent writes or on servicing high queue depths with frequent small requests with all of the disks tied together in one striped array. Yes, RAID-5 delivers awesome linear transfer performance, but RAID 0+1 delivers better performance under typical high transaction multi user loads.
 
Hey, you guys seem really smurt. Mayba you can hlp me. which drive should i back up my pr0n on 5 1\4 floopy or 3 1\2 floopy?


hehe.. i just sed floopy twice..






(j\k... really)
 
http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/557/20
This page does exactly the comparison DL suggested... for 4 drives. I guess nobody wants to run 8-disk 1+0 arrays.

But in any case, the point is that with this scenario, 4x1+0 sits at about 370 IOPS, and 4x5 falls in around 280. That's a big difference.

Oh, and dekard, the best way to back it up is to put it in the "Recycle Bin". Saves space and then it's all in one place to make it easy to find that one clip.

 
unhappy_mage said:
Oh, and dekard, the best way to back it up is to put it in the "Recycle Bin". Saves space and then it's all in one place to make it easy to find that one clip.
Click to expand...

Wow! i didn't know it backed up from there. thanks!
 
draksia said:
Dell has a very good deal on the Poweredge 2800. Right now you get free processor upgrade and free second processor. You also get free second hard disk.

So right now you can get
2 Xeon 3.0ghz 2mb
1 GB ddr2
embedded hardware raid controller
8 drive hotswap backplane attached to the raid
dual gigabit nics
36gb 15k
73gb 10k
dual reduant power supplies

with no os for 1727

If you drop the onboard raid and just the scsi that saves 300 from the price. You can also pick up another gig of ram for about $100 from new. That is a pretty decent price considering what you are getting. It would not be possible to build the same system for that price.
Click to expand...

In relavance to this, guess what just came in today? My PowerEdge 2850

Specs:
Dual Xeon 3.0 GHz Each CPU's
1 Gig (2X512) ECC Registered Ram
Dual 72 Gig 10K RPM SCSI Drives

$1250.

Now the Pics:

server2.JPG


server3.JPG


You can view all the pics: http://www.1shot1killdesigns.com/mark/server/
 
We have two racks of those here at work. That makes about 40 or so. Mostly we have Opteron servers though.
 
MiXdNuTs said:
We have two racks of those here at work. That makes about 40 or so. Mostly we have Opteron servers though.
Click to expand...

Yeah...do yours sound like you have 10 industrial fans running at once? Cause mine sure does. :(
 
ShockTech said:
Yeah...do yours sound like you have 10 industrial fans running at once? Cause mine sure does. :(
Click to expand...

probably louder since he's got 40 of them. LOL
 
I hope everyone in here is making good use of that massive computing power and are folding/crunching data for a good cause... :)
 
1c3d0g said:
I hope everyone in here is making good use of that massive computing power and are folding/crunching data for a good cause... :)
Click to expand...

haha yeah right.

not on these machines
 
Stang Man said:
haha yeah right.

not on these machines
Click to expand...

Heh....the power drain on this thing CANT be cheap. Im gonna hate to see my electric bill this month. :(
 
Well we use them mostly to host user accounts on our domain but also they are for backup, webhosting, and research with some of the chemists and physicists. And yes they are loud but the massive AC array in the room is louder. It's the halon system that you need to watch out for....
 
ShockTech said:
Heh....the power drain on this thing CANT be cheap. Im gonna hate to see my electric bill this month. :(
Click to expand...

yeah, these machines are in use to make MONEY. not waste money on a hobbyist enthusiast project like folding
 
Order this thing. You will be beat up and killed after your company find out how much it costs...

you could run folding@home on it...

288Gb of ram, 72 processors... Yeah, sounds like a real server.
 
bob said:
Order this thing. You will be beat up and killed after your company find out how much it costs...

you could run folding@home on it...
Click to expand...

no you can't. it's not even made for ultrasparc architecture. Stanford is a bunch of bitches with that. A friend of mine asked if he could port it to Itanium and Alpha architecture, but they were bitchy about it and said "No way." so eh, fuck em
 
Stang Man said:
no you can't. it's not even made for ultrasparc architecture. Stanford is a bunch of bitches with that. A friend of mine asked if he could port it to Itanium and Alpha architecture, but they were bitchy about it and said "No way." so eh, fuck em
Click to expand...

I feel the same way. They don't even have an AMD64 linux port out. So I say the same thing. Srew them, I'm not running their x86 crap.
 
Stang Man said:
yeah, these machines are in use to make MONEY. not waste money on a hobbyist enthusiast project like folding
Click to expand...
Troll. :rolleyes: The day you get cancer is when I want to see you talk like that...fool. :mad:
 
1c3d0g said:
Troll. :rolleyes: The day you get cancer is when I want to see you talk like that...fool. :mad:
Click to expand...

Hey, screw you. I fold on ALL my desktop machines at home. But when you have money to make and a business to run, Folding has NO PLACE on my servers
 
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