Help purchasing new server

[Anonymous]

We're a small consulting firm mainly using full AutoCAD versions and LT as well. We may start working with Revit soon but our current server will definitely not handle Revit files for too long. What specs would you consider including on a new server for a small company with no more than 10 employees? Our current server will more than likely become our exchange server.

thanks for the help

[Sinc]

For servers, it's preferable to have separate OS and data drives.  And for the data drives, it's nice to have FAST drives, possibly in a RAID1 or RAID10 configuration.

For only ten people, you won't be hitting your server that hard.  So you don't need much else.  You definitely don't need fancy graphics, and can get by without a whole lot of RAM.  2GB is probably plenty.  For CPU, any of the lower-end chips released in the last couple of years will probably work fine.  The critical thing is disk access, so you want fast there.  If you go with something like 6Gb/s SATA drives, you need a MOBO that can support them.  Also, you hopefully have gigabit ethernet in your office.

[Sinc]

I should probably add that you may have other concerns if you plan on using Vault.  Ideally, Vault is placed on its own computer, and is not on your main server.  You may also want more RAM if you are using Vault.

We don't use Vault, so I can't help you too much with that.

[Anonymous]

I've had a few ideas thrown at me already about which route to go. Anywhere from keeping costs down to a minimum so we could afford 2 servers since Revit Server is about to come out(if not already out) to just getting a middle of the road 64 bit Dell Tower Server w/maximum storage, as many cores as possible and good memory. Since we're a small company I'm pretty confident that the owner will want to keep costs down either way so shopping around is definitely a must. BTW, we do have a gigabit ethernet in our office. As far as Vault goes, I don't know much about it.

thanks

[Sinc]

Getting as many cores as possible isn't really necessary.  You only have ten users.  Most CPUs these days have four cores, and that would be plenty.  There's no need to pay a premium to get one of the 6+ core CPUs.

[Anonymous]

That helps, thanks. What about getting a second processor. Dell is currently offering a deal that would add a second processor for only $20. The processor that's included is as follows. Obviously the second would be the same and for $20 I don't think it's a bad deal at all.

Intel® Xeon® E5506, 2.13Ghz, 4M Cache, 800MHz Max Mem

[Anonymous]

I beg to differ. most cpu's are 2 core. Many have multi-threading, which is of dubious value for a server, which make them appear to have 4 cores. A quad core with multithreading will appear to have 8 cores and a hexacore will appear to have 12. Servers are one of the few places where AMD is supposedly still competitive, but I have no experience either way on that one.

[Anonymous]

The real question is do you need a xeon chip. There are extra costs involved in going that direction. Xeons use ECC memory which is slower AND more expensive, albeit when there is a memory flaw you would be protected. When was the last time someone had a memory flaw on conventional memory that didn't shut down the whole system? The motherboards are pricier due to lower demand and the inclusion of parts that you may not need. The average company using a server doesn't need anything fancier for the server than another workstation with bigger hard drives and weaker graphics.

On the other hand, some do need those specific differences. So just another comment to confuse you a little more.

[Anonymous]

Uh...yea..lol  I'm just looking at Dell's Tower Server packages and that's what they offer. If there's a different/better way to go that offers support(since we're outsourcing our IT right now), I'm all ears.

[Sinc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I beg to differ. most cpu's are 2 core. 

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You can beg if you want... 🙂

But Intel's latest batch of chips are almost universally 4-core.  I think there's only one desktop chip that has two (the i5-2390T).  I think we're quibbling, though... 

I agree on the Xeon stuff...  A lot of newer CPUs don't even support ECC anymore.  ECC RAM used to make a difference, but it doesn't seem to these days.

[Sinc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

That helps, thanks. What about getting a second processor. Dell is currently offering a deal that would add a second processor for only $20. The processor that's included is as follows. Obviously the second would be the same and for $20 I don't think it's a bad deal at all.

Intel® Xeon® E5506, 2.13Ghz, 4M Cache, 800MHz Max Mem

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You probably won't even use the second processor.

[Anonymous]

Well I can't thank you guys enough. All the information is greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of the AT era when I knew a salesman told accountants that they should get a math co-processor to make sure their accounting software would be efficient and correct. Second cpu probably wouldn't hurt, but would it really help? Probably not in your environment

[Anonymous]

It might not have helped the accountants, but the 80387 sure helped acad (2.1g) run better.

Reid

[Anonymous]

Actually it was 80287 days, and it was a requirement for running any engineering software. But math coprocessors only improve trig and advanced math functions. Accounting doesn't use them. It uses integer arithmetic (forget the decimal point and treat your accounting as working in pennies and artificially placing the decimal point.) Accounting can't accept decimal/binary fraction translation errors. But what they were doing was inflating the computer price tag by lying in order to get a bigger commission. When I told them it wasn't any value to the customer, they laughed and said it didn't hurt the computer, the customer wouldn't know the difference, and they would make more for themselves and the store.

[Sinc]

What about compounded interest?  Doesn't that use natural logarithms?

[Anonymous]

No just powers, which can be done easily enough without a math coprocessor. Besides, that is not an accountant's concern. He wants to make sure the ledgers balance and the entries are legitimate. No Enron selling to Enron subsidiary and back with both making profit on each transaction.