How crazy is this? XPS 8300 as primary server for business

[michaeljean30]

So pretty much I went with an I7 2600 dell xps 8300 as the primary server for a 5 user enviroment. Let me know what you think and how risky it is, also remember they can afford to be down for a few hours. Mainly I did this for performance for the price and for a 1000 dollars server I think this is pretty nice.

First the bad news: No Raid at all not doing because board only has two sata 6gbps ports and ssd is going for the os and a WD black 2tb for everything else. Both are sata 3 so with only two ports that's why no raid.

No ECC memory at all.

The good news is it's an windows 2008 R2 running off an samsung 830 128gb ssd. 12gb of ram. And I have an exact copy of the computer hardware in another computer (programmers computer) and if anything fails just pulling it out of there.

The server is going to be pretty basic just for vpn, file server, dc, and quickbooks enterprise. And a little 300 i3 backup server incase dc is down.

I know xeon's the best overall for servers but the i7 is a pretty powerful.

 

[GhislainG]

It's fine for such an environment. As long as the data is backed up on a daily basis, I see no issues.

 

[13thmonkey]

its only got 2 sata ports total?
a stata III HDD on a sata II port will be absolutely fine and not bottlenecked, sata III hdds' are a little bit of a gimmic.

so if there are other Sata II ports available then you could raid (5) quite happily, + a regular backup (maybe to a cloud provider).

 

[13thmonkey]

xeons are just as powerful as the 2600 by the way, no issues there, its more a longevity issue on mobo components. But i'd be hoping that over next 2-3 years they'll figure out more things to do with the server and want a bigger and better one, and then you can relegate the i7 to some other function.

 

[13thmonkey]

Errm does windows 2008 R2 support trim? in which case you need a way to clean that OS drive every now and then.

 

[das_stig]

For $1000, I sure you could build yourself a far better server with all the features missing from the XPS like RAID.

 

[GhislainG]

For $1000, I sure you could build yourself a far better server with all the features missing from the XPS like RAID.

Dell couldn't sell it with 2 hard disks in RAID 0 if it didn't support it. Configuring a RAID 1 should be as easy.

 

[michaeljean30]

It's not that I can't do a raid it's that it won't be a sata3 raid and I am installing the os on a samsung 830 and the WD Black 2TB for files and everything else.

Now lets say I do want to do a raid NOT ON THE OS but for the WD Black which is a secondary hard drive. Can I do it without having to do a software raid.

 

[13thmonkey]

sata 3 is bull for anything but SSD's hdd's do not saturate sata 2. so stick your OS on the SSD on a sata 3 port, and have a large raided array of 3-4 drives for storage on the sata 2 ports, so that you data is always safe, or just a 3 drives and a 4th as a spare, so that if a drive fails you instantly trun the spare on and then order a replacement, you are only running with out the spare for delivery times.

 

[GhislainG]

According to the specs, that system has two SATA 2 and two SATA 3 ports. Presuming a DVD-RW drive already is installed, that leaves 2 ports for a RAID 1. And there's no room for several additional hard disks. As 13thmonkey mentioned above, it makes no difference if a hard disk is connected to a SATA 2 or a SATA 3 port.

 

[michaeljean30]

Best answer selected by michaeljean30.

 

[michaeljean30]

According to the specs, that system has two SATA 2 and two SATA 3 ports. Presuming a DVD-RW drive already is installed, that leaves 2 ports for a RAID 1. And there's no room for several additional hard disks. As 13thmonkey mentioned above, it makes no difference if a hard disk is connected to a SATA 2 or a SATA 3 port.

So I should be able to use the ssd as the primary os and boot drive and still do a raid 1 for the secondary drives?

 

[13thmonkey]

should be able to yes, raid 1 on the sata II's ssd on Sata III and optical on sata III (its a waste yes, but no more than the HDD's)

 

[GhislainG]

So I should be able to use the ssd as the primary os and boot drive and still do a raid 1 for the secondary drives?

Yes, but you still need to backup the data on a regular basis.