Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

Questions / advise on building or buying a server for small office

Tags:
  • Workstations
  • Office
  • Servers
  • Business Computing
Last response: in Business Computing
Share
April 2, 2013 4:23:07 PM

I own a small business with a server and 9 workstations. It is basically a file server for the dental software. I recently replaced my slow old Gateway profile 5 win xp workstations by building 9 new ones with i3 1155 win 7 pro ones. Things are much faster as you can imagine but now I have the hots to build a new server. The current server is a 2006 Gateway E9520T server running dual Xeon 5130 Woodcrest processors and windows small business server 2003.
https://support.gateway.com/s/Servers/E9520TServer/1205...

There is nothing wrong with the server other than it sounds like a jet engine. There is part of me that wants to build a new server, part of me that wants to buy one already done as they are kind of strange beasties, and part of me wants to leave well enough alone. Not sure how much longer MS will support server 2003 and there would be a certain satisfaction in doing it myself.

Anyone with experience doing this? Any thoughts on this possible list of parts?
O.S. MS Server 2008 R2
Processor Xeon E3-1245 V2
CPU cooler CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CW-9060007-WW) Water Cooler
Motherboard Supermicro X9SAE-V Intel C216 Chipset - Socket H2 LGA-1155
RAM Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 1600 ECC unbuffered KVR16E11K4/32I
Case 17x17x13 Coolermaster HAF XB
PSU Seasonic G Series SSR-550W Gold Modular
Backplane Icy dock MB994SP 4x 2.5" SSD hot swap backplane cage
Keyboard/Mouse Logitech MK120 USB wired combo
Hard Drive #1 SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB
Hard Drive #2 SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB
Hard Drive #3 SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB
Hard Drive #4 SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB
DVD Drive #1 Asus Blu-ray Drive BC-12B1ST
Monitor Existing Gateway
Fan 200 mm COOLER MASTER 200mm MegaFlow 200 Silent Fan

I realize I will be going from a server with reduntant power supplies to a a single power supply. I've never had a PSU failure. Also I would be going from dual CPUs to a single CPU. I also have the current drives in hotswap RAID 5 and I figured having mirrored hot swap os drive and data drive would be just as safe in reality. Data is currently 40GB and adds 1 GB a month.

I would think that moving from hard drives to SSDs would speed things up on the network.

What do I need to be thinking of for this possible build? Seems like buying a server might be cheaper than building one.

More about : questions advise building buying server small office

April 3, 2013 7:41:46 AM

While the hardware specifications that you picked out are nice quality, I would be leery about doing a custom-built server to run your whole business. After all, supporting it and ensuring 100% uptime and compatibility falls to you. We do a lot of custom-built computers, but when it comes to a server that is running business-critical data for your whole network, I personally just prefer a pre-configured high quality server like the HP ProLiant servers.

Going with SSDs in most computer systems is going to give you a very noticeable performance improvement. Your storage subsystem is the slowest part of any computer, so the faster you make that, the faster everything performs. However, on a server like this there's only so much room to work with. A single Samsung 840 Pro SSD can offer up to 550 MB/s of throughput. However, on a gigabit network the maximum throughput you are realistically going to be able to support is about 115 MB/s of throughput. Thus, for nearly everything your SSDs are not being utilized to the speed that they are built for. Additionally, if you do have an SSD go bad, I don't know of any method of recovering any data from it. Once its dead its dead, where as with a hard drive you can often have it recovered through a few different methods. This is why I'd recommend going with some 10k or 15k SAS drives instead. It's going to give you plenty of throughput on a gigabit network, offer you 24x7 usage for years of reliability, and costs about the same.

One thing I noticed is you don't have anything listed for a RAID controller. I imagine you are looking at using the onboard SATA controller to do your RAID? I would not recommend this for a business server. A dedicated hardware RAID controller not only offers you greater reliability, but greater performance as well. More than once I've seen an onboard SATA controller RAID fail and it's not pretty. You are better off using standard 7k RPM SATA hard drives, saving your money instead of the SSDs, and investing in a true hardware RAID controller if this is a business server.

One thing that hasn't really been discussed is exactly what roles you are planning to use your server for. For instance, do you have a domain set up, or will that be something you plan to implement? Will you be just storing data and sharing out folders, or do you have applications you actually run directly from the server which are accessed by client workstation applications? The only dental software that I've worked with previously is Dentrix, but that software doesn't really have a huge demand for resources. If you are planning to do several roles, such as domain services and a separate for your dental software, then you should virtualize them into separate virtual machines to help improve the management of your systems. In other words, changes to your domain don't affect in any way the computer system running your dental software and vice versa. Additionally, this can help greatly reduce down time due to failures. If your server does go down, you can move your virtual machines to any other computer, regardless of the hardware, running Windows Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, or Windows 8 Pro, and turn them back on and be up and going again.

In quite a few small businesses right now that we have been working with, we recommend setting up their primary server, but also ensuring they have a Windows 8 Pro computer in their network that is capable of running their virtual machines temporarily in the event of a complete system failure so they aren't shut down for a week or more waiting on parts or anything else that has to be fixed. I really like that you can take Hyper-V machines created in Server 2008/2012 and run them in Hyper-V on a Windows 8 computer if needed.
April 3, 2013 11:40:29 AM

Thank you for your knowledge and advice. The software is indeed Dentrix and that is all the server is used for (and sharing some printers). Web hosting is done elsewhere. Just want the network to be fast, reliable, and preferrably quiet. I have thought about VOIP phones but they didn't seem like they would save me any money and are probably a project for another day.
Your statements on DYI are noted. Any suggestion on which model HP Proliant? when I looked at them previously it seemed that they did not come with the operating system but maybe I was just looking at a bare bones system.
Any suggestions on the RAID controller? Seems like LSI are popular.
Your points about drives are noted. I'll think on that some more.
Living in a small town the number of knowledgeable computer people is very small and to a certain extent I have been educating myself (work in progress there). I guess my thinking was if I built it I would know how to fix it. Pretty good at workstations and stand alone computers but no experience with servers. This one was set up for me and has been reliable. They don't seem to make parts for it and I have a few spare parts just in case. It is very noisy and my thinking was I could make one much quieter and with a lower energy demand myself.
Any other advice that comes to mind?
Related resources
April 3, 2013 3:00:23 PM

Dentrix doesn't require a whole lot of power in a smaller office really. I'd say that running a server with 24 GB or even 16 GB of RAM would be sufficient. Really, your storage subsystem is going to be play a pretty big part in it since this is a database type application, and you have several concurrent requests for small bits of information. However, it's not just the server that gives you the best throughput, you also have to ensure that your network is optimized to give you all the throughput you can utilize on your workstations and servers.

You didn't mention anything about domain serves. Do you have a domain, or currently no? If not, then what kind of user security do you have in place for your workgroup? There's a lot that goes into this because of HIPAA compliance, it's a lot more complex than just having a user account and password security. Where you already have nine workstations, I'd suggest evaluating going to a domain soon as you don't have much more room for expansion within the constrains of a workgroup, and it is going to be much more difficult to manage when it gets larger.

The model of HP ProLiant server you need is going to again depend on a lot of factors. Do you have rack space, or are you looking into a pedistal server? How much future upgradability do you need or want, such as running multiple virtual machines for a domain controller or remote desktop session host, etc. For a simple starting server I'd recommend looking into the ML110 G7 server. The G7 might be a little harder to find, but you can purchase the hard drive trays and your own third party hard drives pretty easily, where as currently the newer G8 servers require using specific hard drive caddies which can only be purchased with the full HP hard drive, which are very expensive.

Very recently some of the G8 hard drive caddies are starting to come available separately, though, so it's becoming much more of a viable option for small business systems. A quad-core processor would be adequate to do what you need, though if you're looking at a lot of future expansion, you may need something with hyperthreading or even wish to look into a dual-socket supported server, even if you only stick with one processor for now, and can upgrade to an additional one if needed.
April 4, 2013 5:50:27 AM

The network as it is now is set up as a workgroup under win SBS 2003. Users log in individually to connect to the network. I don't think I fully understand what you mean by a domain name and how that would influence the network. I have no expectation that I would expand the number of users in the network. also I am unclear as to what virtual machines would get me. I guess I understand what VMs are but unclear how they would actually help me. This really is a very basic file server for Dentrix and not much else.

There is wallspace that unit could be rack mounted but right now the Gateway server is a tower and just sitting on a table in a storage room.

I would like to optimize the network to gain as much speed out of it as possible and you pointed out earlier that the network speed is probably only 100 MB/s, so any thoughts in that direction would be great.
April 4, 2013 9:11:11 AM

The difference between a workgroup and domain is manageability and size. Workgroups are for small networks, usually ten or less devices, and normally works as a mesh topology where all computers want to connect and communicate with each other since there is no central server that manages user accounts or share permissions. This can get messy to manage when you start getting more computers and users, as changes to one user account information (password, share permissions, etc.) has to be modified on every computer.

A domain, however, manages all user accounts and share folder access permissions from one central server. By default, any user created in the domain can log in to any workstations in the domain with the same username and password, and you can even set it up so they have access to all the same data no matter what computer they log in from. A domain offers more control over the Windows environment, computers, and access throughout your network. HIPAA requires that every user who will have access to any computers in your network have their own unique username and unique password.

Virtualization isn't quite as effective sometimes in a small business environment, as sometimes you just don't have as many resources that need to be running from a single system. But let's give you an example of how this would work in your specific environment:

Lets say that you purchase one physical server, for now going with a quad-core processor and 16 GB of memory, and install Windows Server 2008R2 Standard or Server 2012 Standard on the physical system. You set up Dentrix and some shared folders for users to access individual data or shared data, along with the necessary application folders that have to be shared out for Dentrix. Now a few things happen. First, you do decide to add in a domain controller. So without virtualization you just have to install that same role on top of everything else that server is doing, which means having to reconfigure all the file sharing permissions, and can possibly wreak havoc on your application shares which are already set up. Then lets say the motherboard on your server goes out. You have a week down time waiting for that part to come in, then since you had to replace to a completely different motherboard, you have to do a whole new installation of your WS2008/2012 environment, all of your roles, all of your dentrix software and shares, all of your user accounts for the domain, etc. Even if you did a full system clone backup, to protect your data and your program settings, it's pretty much worthless if your entire system drivers are different and won't recover properly.

Now, lets say instead that you have set up your physical machine with Hyper-V and are going to do all of your actual services in virtual machines. You can start by creating just one virtual machine, and since you aren't planning on running a domain right now, you just set up and install your Dentrix softwre, all the necessary user accounts and shares, etc. A year from now you do decide to move to a domain environment for whatever reason. Instead of having to completely reconfigure your existing Dentrix virtual machine, you just create a new second virtual machine, running on the same hardware, and set up all your user account information, shares, etc. there. You can then join your Dentrix VM to the domain like any other computer, modify your share permissions, and you are done. Additionally, you can modify, upgrade, or add services like updates to Dentrix or other software to your server without it necessarily affecting anything else running. This is compartmentalizing roles, so that they can be easily modified, moved, or removed without it affecting other critical services.

Lets go one step further again. Lets say you have two virtual machines up and running now, and your server motherboard goes out. Instead of having to wait for replacement parts, reinstalling all of your information and transferring all your data again, you just have to move the latest backup of the virtual machines, stored as a single virtual hard drive file (VHD) to another computer in your network (regardless of hardware) running Server 2008/2012 or even Windows 8 Professional, load up those two virtual machines in Hyper-V on the second computer, and start them back up again. Your downtime just went from one or two weeks to possibly less than an hour. Virtualization also helps facilitate growth or migration of your physical server as needed. If everything is running at the host hardware level, then moving to a new server with completely different processor architecture, RAID controller drivers, etc. requires a LOT more work and most likely a full new installation of everything. However, with virtualization, you can set up your new hardware or add hardware to your server, and for the most part it is completely invisible to the virtual machines. You can even move them to completely different hardware and it will not require you reinstalling or reconfiguring everything to accommodate that new hardware.
!