Server Advice

[Lordy]

I would just go to Ebay and find a NEW IN BOX server.

Sorted

Looks like some company overspent on hardware a tad
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5736542937

Lordy

 

[Michael Salem]

office
hours onsite support with say 4 hour response ??? is a must

But be careful. This is just the time to come on-site. In one case (many
years ago) the support people came quickly on-site, then went away for a
full week waiting for a part -- but they had kept their contract. The
machines I buy have several options; as far as I remember:

- next business day on-site response. Free for 3 years (warranty).
- 8-hour response, during business days. Cheapest paid option
- 4-hour response, any time. Higher cost
- 8-hour guaranteed time to repair, highest cost.

Best wishes,

 

[Michael Salem]

British Standard Idiots

 

[Bob]

These machines have support from the manufacturer (HP or Dell). HP has very
good support. I would not consider going with a private third party for
support. The manufacturer will have parts for all the machines, a third
party will not.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I have been approached to build a server, to be used for file storage and
backups. What is a server by definition and what specs and O/S should I be
looking to provide the above? Is XP Pro sufficient?

By simplest definition, a server is any computer that services other
computers.

These days, the definition has become a bit more specialized. Most
servers should have at least two or more processors. Plus they often
have large multiple hard disks both to store lots of data and also to
act as each other's redundant backups, when used with a RAID disk
organization scheme. The processors often are higher performance
versions of common desktop chips, thus also more expensive chips; for
example, instead of using an Athlon 64 you'd be using the Opteron
chips. However, having said that, I've been seeing some big name
vendors trying to pass off a desktop machine as a server; e.g. I've
seen Dell recently repackage a desktop Pentium 4 system as a server, so
it's certainly possible to make a server out of entirely desktop parts.


Is XP Pro sufficient? For your purposes (six machines), I'd say yes. A
single-processor desktop machine converted to act as a server would
probably serve you well until about 10 users. After that then you
should really look at something more specially designed for serving
purposes. Also the more proper server operating systems are Windows
2000 Advanced Server and Windows Server 2003, rather than XP.

When you say that your server will be used for backup purposes, do you
mean that you'll be using the hard disks on the server to completely
duplicate the data on other computers? That's a pretty intensive
operation. It would require both an extremely high speed network (at
least switched 100 Mbps Ethernet, not wireless WiFi), as well as some
industrial strength hard disks based on the SCSI standards not on
regular IDE hard disks. And beyond that, you'd have to backup the data
to tape still, even with a RAID based disk scheme in place.

FTP Required also

Well, Windows XP Pro comes with what is the world's worst FTP and HTTP
serving software, called IIS (or Internet Information Server). It's
free, but that's its only redeeming value. IIS happens to be one of the
network hacker's favourite pieces of software to attack, because it's
full of security holes. And on top of that, IIS is not particularly
easy to setup compared to any other FTP or webserver software for
Windows. You can download any number of free FTP server packages
without any worries about being subjected to the same security risks
that IIS puts you through; and they're usually easier to setup than
IIS.

If you do decide to use IIS, make it only for use by your internal
staff and don't put it on the Internet, even with a firewall protecting
it!

Please do not advise linux has I am not converse with it.

Actually, you shouldn't cut yourself off from this avenue, because
you'll find your easiest paths to server-dom are here. There are
various Linux server projects out there geared towards magical one-step
server installation. You won't ever have to ever see the Linux
low-level command-line, and the entire thing is administered from a
webpage from any other machine. These Linux projects make Windows
servers look horribly overcomplicated. And they will come with all of
the software needed to do ftp, webpage serving, and file serving right
out of the box and already pre-configured.

Somebody else might be able to provide you a link to one of these
projects, as I am not familiar with modern projects.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Jim Howes]

Sorted

Looks like some company overspent on hardware a tad
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5736542937

I recall saying earlier today that most servers are overspecced.

 

[kony]

I have been approached to build a server, to be used for file storage and
backups. What is a server by definition and what specs and O/S should I be
looking to provide the above? Is XP Pro sufficient?

Current IT infrastructure comprises of 4 laptops + 2 desktops

FTP Required also

Please do not advise linux has I am not converse with it.

Well some of the other posters have covered this already but
it bears repeating- You don't really have the experience to
be maintaining a server the company relies on. You haven't
been clear though about whether it was just some "idea" or
more like a directive... If it's implied that you ARE the
person who's going to handle the server or it's in your
best interests to do it (whatever) then you'd be best off
chosing whatever you personally feel most comfortable
maintaining.

A filesever is not at all difficult or demanding beyond
security strategies, indeed it could run from a Pentium 200,
64MB of memory and a linux boot floppy to simply serve
files. You'll want someone more than that of course but to
service 4 laptops and 2 desks, you really need to consider
the budget. If you can't put a few thousand $$$$ into it
(which you dont' really "need" to at all) then it's a
different situation, more limiting in choosing software,
support, hardware, etc, etc. Determining the budget is the
first step.

 

[recursor]

Sorted

Looks like some company overspent on hardware a tad
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5736542937

Looks like a nice little machine, didn't think much of the graphics card spec though

 

[Kav]

A file server can be exactly the same as a home PC of course, but will
often have an emphasis on higher spec hard drives, better / redundant
cooling, hardware monitoring etc. Builtin backup for convenience. CPU power
is not so important.

Lordy

We've only just made an NT4 server redundant after shifting its work to a
2000 server.

The NT4 server was a P3 400 with a drive array amounting to 40GB (heh how
quant!)

It was perfectly capeable of doing the job of domain server / dhcp / dns /
file serving and 4 SQL databases. We just got rid because of the imminent
lack of support from MS for NT4.

 

[Kav]

I recall saying earlier today that most servers are overspecced.

Well they probably are but then thats usually a requirement.

You wouldn't want to have to upgrade your servers after a couple of years.
In fact I don't want to have to do *anything* to my servers for 5 years at
least.

 

[Alan Walpool]

This has been a very interesting discussion even though it off topic.

Questions:

1) Do you really need ECC memory for a server anymore?

2) Should there be a difference between servers used for different
purposes? Some servers actually would require some real hardware to
run effectively.

3) Yes the original posters server requirements looks like could be
handled by a laptop. ;-)).

Thanks for the interesting information on servers.

Alan

 

[rohit]

well a server as being said is not different from a pc as far as u do
not need a very heavy workload. in ur case a normal pc will suffice. i
mysel am running a server node in my college lan with win xp with IIS
installed. for the work u need to do its best for small number of
computers in ur network, thats ur case. well as some people have said u
will be confined to a total of 10 connections its not so u r having a
option to change it the only problem that commes is ur computer becomes
slow when number of concurrent connections is large....well since u
have got to do data backup n storage only it will not become a problem
for u. i am running a data storage n web hosting server on a 2.8Ghz HT
comp with 512MB RAM with winxp pro o/s (iis) sp2 and along with it i do
offer php,asp support also.
now as far as ftp is concerned its again that much easy to use with ur
provided spec. the best thing is u need not be a comp expert to manage
a server with such specs and limits.
so do go for makin the server with the options u have. it will work
very fine n i can bet on it. in case of any technical prob certainly v
r here to help u out.
the only thin i 'll like to specify is do use a computer with atleast
2ghz speed n 256mb ram

 

[Bob Day]

This has been a very interesting discussion even though it off topic.

Questions:

1) Do you really need ECC memory for a server anymore?

Maybe not, if you have six feet of lead shielding handy.
Personally, I prefer ECC plus Chipkill plus -x4 device
memory.

-- Bob Day

 

[Bob Day]

Maybe not, if you have six feet of lead shielding handy.
Personally, I prefer ECC plus Chipkill plus -x4 device
memory.

-- Bob Day

And, of course, registered!

-- Bob Day

 

[Michael Salem]

Just to go against the current a bit, I'd amplify what I said before:

While in all but the smallest multi-user environment a capable server
running a Network Operating System, with all the complexity and expert
man-hours, is essential, a handful of people essentially each working on
their own thing with programs loaded on each machine, loading files from
a server and saving them back occasionally, will work perfectly well in
a peer-to-peer network, which may use an active workstation as file
server. This can be maintained quite satisfactorily by someone with
moderate knowledge.

This does need a little organising, with all files that must be
available to several users or/and backed up kept in a central place with
a sensible directory structure. Security is essentially non-existent
(although Win XP Pro is better than earlier versions).

Networked email on a small or large network is well handled by running a
mail distribution program with storage on the file server, and an email
program run from each workstation. I install the Mercury mail
distribution system and Pegasus mail on the file server, and run Mercury
from the file server, and Pegasus from each individual machine. Others
prefer Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook.

The one essential thing is a well-thought-out backup system to protect
against hardware failure, file corruption which may not be discovered
immediately, and catastrophe (fire, flood, theft). An automatic nightly
backup of the entire server onto tapes for Mon Tue Wed Thu & 1st 2nd 3rd
4th 5th Friday, with the latest Friday tape stored off-site will serve.
See http://www.taobackup.com/

To minimise down-time a true (not zero) RAID array with facilities to
rebuild any drive including a system drive is useful.

Best wishes,

 

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

1) Do you really need ECC memory for a server anymore?

Yes. Why would you not? It's not too much of a worry if someone's
Excel crashes due to a memory glitch, but if the corporate database
corrupts or goes down you're in trouble.

2) Should there be a difference between servers used for different
purposes? Some servers actually would require some real hardware to
run effectively.

Oh yes indeed. Form follows function.

File servers: Not much CPU, some memory, lots of disks on clever
controllers. Large backup devices.

Mail servers: Some CPU, some memory, some disk. More of each if you're
running content analysis.

DNS/firewall/other net services: Very little hardware required (unless
you're running a really large network).

Application servers: Entirely application dependant. Probably lots of
CPU, lots of memory, some disk, and most importantly OS dependant on
the application. Indeed, hardware type - AIX server? HPUX? Solaris?
Not everything runs on Windows or Linux.

3) Yes the original posters server requirements looks like could be
handled by a laptop. ;-)).

Hard to tell, from the details given, but since it would be their
first server it's probably just a dedicated small fileserver.

Cheers - Jaimie

 

[Lordy]

2) Should there be a difference between servers used for different
purposes? Some servers actually would require some real hardware to
run effectively.

Certainly.

Print Servers dont need much of anything and can often be the spare
laptop.
Good printers often have print servers built-in these days.

Firewalls need 2 NICS and thats about it Add CPU for stateful packet
inspection. Add discs if you want log files

File servers dont need much CPU power. Money better spent on better/more
storage.

Web servers need good CPU and networking capabilities. Lots of memory to
manage user sessions etc.

Database servers need most of everything

Then you got SSL Accelerators and the like!

The problem is often unscrupulous salesmen may use the word "server" to
sell you a machine with lots of everything even though you may not need
it.

This is also what you get with Microsoft "Server" products. Lots of
stuff you probably dont want to use. (and until recently switched on by
default).

Remember the great NT Workstation vs Server debate - effectively the
same OS.

 

[Trevor Best]

Why? Because it has 'server' in the name?

Yes. What Dee said.

Also because the machine won't grind to a halt when you copy files
to/from it like the current workstation flavors of Windows do.

Also it will allow expansion of your network, a workstation OS will
limit you to 10 connections.

Also it will allow you to set up a domain and manage users centrally.

Also it allows bigger versions of certain server software to run, e.g.
SQL Server Standard edition as opposed to Personal edition, which would
limit you to 5 concurrent query threads and no replication publishing or
worse, MSDE that will limit you to 2GB databases.

Think about your client and their ability to expand.

Also if you do go for Win2003, don't go for the Web edition, it really
is XPee dressed up (10 user limit for file sharing connections, etc
although I can't comment on it's performance in relation to using XPee
as a file server, which is shite).

 

[Trevor Best]

Database servers need most of everything

I'd second that

Then you got SSL Accelerators and the like!

The problem is often unscrupulous salesmen may use the word "server" to
sell you a machine with lots of everything even though you may not need
it.

Yes, I once had a salesman try to convince me I needed the 486DX/33 and
not the 486SX/25 I wanted for my Novell server as the former has a maths
co-pro. Yeah, like Novell runs on top of MathCad doesn't it?

This is also what you get with Microsoft "Server" products. Lots of
stuff you probably dont want to use. (and until recently switched on by
default).

Remember the great NT Workstation vs Server debate - effectively the
same OS.

Yes, two reg keys was the difference.

 

[recursor]

Yes. What Dee said.

Also because the machine won't grind to a halt when you copy files to/from it like the current
workstation flavors of Windows do.

Yeah, lol, and they call it a multitasking environment