Small Business Server

[Anonymous]

Any recommendations/advice for a 10 person
engineering/surveying firm.

One office with one server that will be taken'
down. We don't host any websites or share data online. It's primary
use will be a file server (Civil 3d 2007, Raster Design, MS Office,etc.) and
license manager. It will be the only server. 6 cad clients, 4 office clients. We
access a large raster image library and database often. The office is wired
entirely CAT 5.

I purchased this server 4-yrs ago. I started w/ 4
GB of data (stored files, apps & OS) and now have it up to 54
GB

I'm looking at a Dell PowerEdge 2800 w/ 2.8GHz/2MB
cache, Xeon w/ 800 MHz side bus, 2 GB of 400 MHz DDR2 Ram, It will have an
embedded RAID system set up for RAID5. Four 146 GB, 15000 RPM SCSI HD's (I
will most likely through 2 more HD's in for good measure).

Backup will be done on a PowerVault 110T LT02-L
200/400 GB external tape drive using Veritas Backup Exec.

John

[TravisNave]

Looks good to me John.

My only suggestion would be not to skimp on the RAM. Since RAM is so cheap, you might as well get as much as you can. You gotta figure you are gonna have this server for at least another 4 years as well. During this time, Windows Vista and 64-bit computers will probably be common place. That means clients will have the potential of having 16GB of RAM or more in the coming years. I already run 2GB in my laptop and 3GB in our desktop training machines.

Since it will primarily be a file server, you'll want fast reliable hard drives and a bunch of them. Looks like you will be set. The PowerEdge is a nice server and I have had a few myself. I also love the PowerVault autoloaders. Good choice.

You might consider a 1000mbps switch. Your server will most likely support this link speed and if your clients don't already have them, they will during your server's lifetime.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input Travis.

[Anonymous]

John Mayo wrote:
> One office with one server that will be taken' down. We don't host any
> websites or share data online. It's primary use will be a file server
> (Civil 3d 2007, Raster Design, MS Office,etc.) and license manager. It
> will be the only server. 6 cad clients, 4 office clients. We access a
> large raster image library and database often. The office is wired
> entirely CAT 5.

Your spec looks pretty good; six CAD clients + 4 office clients is a
fairly light load for that server. I'm running with about 15 CAD
clients, 5 MapInfo clients, SQL Server, MapGuide (with about 10
concurrent users, 400 total) with associated Cold Fusion reporting over
IIS, and some blackberry mobile apps on a dual-800mhz machine with 2Gb
RAM. It rarely goes over 40% cpu, disk queue is small, and other
performance indicators are good.

I'm building a 2850 with a similar configuration to yours, but with dual
CPUs. It's not a rush job though, I just need to minimize risk from
ageing hardware.

As Travis noted, gigE is a good choice, especially for viewing orthos
over the wire. I think dual gigE comes standard on the 2800; it does on
the 2850.

Extra memory is always good, but if you're not running server
applications like databases, map servers, etc, then 2Gb is probably
going to be fine.

I'm not sure if I'm misreading, but do you have a database app running
on the server? Are you running Microsoft Small Business Server with
Exchange? If so, you may also want to consider:

- 4GB RAM
- 2nd CPU
- Splitting your backplane RAID1/RAID5 or getting a second controller.

This last option would allow you to put two disks into a RAID1
configuration for OS + transaction logs, and an additional four into
RAID5 for the database, CAD and office files, and images. If you split
the backplane (at least for the DELL controller I have experience with)
you can also add an extra drive that will act as a hot spare for either
of the RAID sets, giving even higher security.

Jason

[Anonymous]

Hey John

If you do what Jason suggests you will have one sweet server.
Last I knew No end user had ever b*tched about a network that ran too fast.

Price is going up but so is the life expectancy

John Postlewait
IS Department
George Butler Associates, Inc.

[Anonymous]

John, Jason & Travis,

Thank-you all.

Jason,

The database I mentioned is an RBase database. It's very small (compared to
an enterprise level database) & is really only used for client & job data.
There is really only one or two people accessing it all day long. Not
exactly the type of database that will dog the server down.

I think I'm set to go.

Thanks again guys,

John

[Anonymous]

& the gig-E NIC is included (just not the AA baterries)

John