Clients awful server has him headed for disaster... any recommendations?

[Big Jim]

I bought a 2nd hand Dell PE2950 off an ebay seller.

Reading posts like this makes me really realise how under utilised it is.
It literally serves files to the network, runs DHCP,DNS and an AD that I don't use (only 2 users in my shop and 3 computers.)

I really should think about doing more with it.

 

[fencepost]

If you're not a fan of RAID 1 or RAID 10, RAID6 should still get you significant latency improvements over individual spindles - and possibly over RAID1.

With a 2950, the things to be aware of:

• Upgrade your firmware on everything - particularly if you're going to run VMWare ESXi
  
• If you're moving it, sometimes the power supplies are delicate flowers - I moved one that had been replaced but left powered down in the rack to a customer as an emergency VM machine, after bringing it up to ensure it was clean, but when I got to my destination both power supplies were DOA. Apparently other people have encountered the same thing when moving them. The power supplies will show a green indicator LED when plugged in even if they're not in the system, so if you plug them in and get no lights, you'll need new ones.
• The PERC 6 wants all SAS or all SATA, not a mixture of the two. If you're doing a RAID of enterprise-level drives plus you want an SSD, you're going to have to hang the SSD off the on-board SATA ports.
• You'll probably need a new battery for the PERC, at least if you want to use write caching for performance.
  
• Hopefully you have a 2950-III, they had some improvements over the older ones, including twice the RAM capacity and an internal USB port if you're going to be booting VMWare from USB instead of from your storage drives.

 

[livewire]

Even though it doesn't classify as a "real server", I have had tremendous luck with the Lenovo TS140 series. They're inexpensive, and unlike Dell servers, have uncrippled SATA 6G ports on them. This is quite nice because there are deals to be had on enterprise-class solid state drives on eBay and they will positively run circles around any hard drive raid setup. A mirrored set of Intel S3500 or S3700 drives can make all the difference in the world!

All that said, the server in my office is a Dell R720 with all the bells and whistles. Used, sure, but under warranty until 2019 and for less than $3k invested, I have a server that retailed $30k new (as configured). Used can be the right option when dealing with clients on a budget but only if you are comfortable supporting it. That's why I like the redundancy aspects associated with the R720...