Internal Server

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jhoppe

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Hi all,

This is pretty much a business decision, so I thought this may be the correct place for this question.

For anyone who is running an actual server (virtual, blade, rack, tower, etc.), what are you running? What OS do you run? If you had to do it over again, would you purchase the same model?

I'm in the market to replace my 2005-vintage custom build running Win 2003. Instead of dumping ~$150 into it for RAM and mobo upgrades, I'd rather look into something new.

I'd prefer to spend under $1,000, and would like to have around 500GB of HW Raid 1 space (no onboard Raid). Win 2008 R2 would be my preference as I run a domain for GP, etc. It would mainly be a file server, DC, network services, print server, app server (accounting software, WSUS, WDS), etc.

Can anyone suggest a server model for me based on their own internal needs or what they have done for customers?

Thanks in advance!
 
I retired my webserver recently. It was a Cyrix 500Mhz with 512Mb ram running windows 2000 server. That girl ran for at least 10 years with zero problems. I think I might have changed the power supply in it once but I can't remember.

Anyway I replaced it with a virtual box instance. The new systems great. It runs on a Linux host and I can take snapshots to back it up, I am running 2003 now instead of 2000. I am very happy with my decision to go with a VM for a server. Its one less box I have to provide power for and when I want to work on it all I have to do is open it.

I am thinking about making it run in headless mode so I don't have the window on the host computer. Then I would have to log on to it through terminal server.

Anyway I don't know what your requirements are but If I where you I would look in to virtualization.
 
We have been switching everything over to vmware servers at work. So much easier to manage, so many benefits to running a vm.
 
vdub12 said:
I retired my webserver recently. It was a Cyrix 500Mhz with 512Mb ram running windows 2000 server. That girl ran for at least 10 years with zero problems. I think I might have changed the power supply in it once but I can't remember.

Anyway I replaced it with a virtual box instance. The new systems great. It runs on a Linux host and I can take snapshots to back it up, I am running 2003 now instead of 2000. I am very happy with my decision to go with a VM for a server. Its one less box I have to provide power for and when I want to work on it all I have to do is open it.

I am thinking about making it run in headless mode so I don't have the window on the host computer. Then I would have to log on to it through terminal server.

Anyway I don't know what your requirements are but If I where you I would look in to virtualization.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't trust virtual box snap shots. I had a machine get borked up somehow and the only fix was to delete all the old snap shots in a weird fashion. I even tried editing the xml files to force it to use them. All I got were weird error messages and they weren't really helpful. It refused to load the vm. I would supplement the snapshots with some kind of real backup, though snap shots are good for the quickie test of something.
 
I really don't have much server experience, but what are the real benefits of running a virtual server instead? Your still storing everything on your computer. Do some of your apps require a server? Do you use it to simulate a network environment to take advantage of network only services? I'm thinking of building a server for the shop, mainly for storing files. But that's because I'm not sure what benefit having it do anymore than that would be. Any thoughts or explanations would be helpful.
 
The only need I have in my office is for a dedicated file server for backups and file sharing. After using a Windows 2K then 2k3 server running RAID 1 then RAID 5, I opted to use Windows Home Server after hearing such good things about it. If you haven't heard or tried it, visit: http://www.wegotserved.com/ for more info.

But to summarize, I love it because not only is it a file server, but it can backup up to 10 Windows PCs via the network and in the event of a crash, you can simply input the WHS restore CD and it will scan your network for your WHS and restore any partition to the system. So in the event of a hard drive crash, just pop in a new disk, partition it appropriately via the WHS restore disc and then 20-30 minutes later (or longer if you have a lot of stuff) the computer is back to how it was.

Before WHS, I used to use Ghost to clone a static image and then backup to the server just my data files. Now I don't bother as the WHS will backup everything and you can even set certain files or folder not to be backed up to avoid taking up too much space. It can also be used as a Windows Remote Desktop gateway. so if you're paying for LogMeIn Plus or GoToMyPC you can cancel those services. There are also a bunch of user made add-ins to enhance the product. I currently have my WHS working as an iTunes server at home to share music to the whole family, plus I use it to stream saved movies to my PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC.

Another thing I like is that you can expand the storage exponentially. So long as you have data ports (SATA, IDE, USB) you can add any drive to the drive pool and the server will simply expand the total disc capacity. And for redunancy, while it does not do any form of RAID, it does duplicate any folder marked for duplication. So if you have more than 1 disk, WHS will duplicate the data on two or more drives. And unlike say a RAID 5 setup, with WHS you can mount any drive in any machine that supports NTFS and read the data. With RAID 5, if your RAID controller is hosed you'll need a compatible one before you can get access to your data.

Anyway, if you need more than just a glorified NAS, you can get Windows 2008 and if you like the built-in backup features of WHS, it's about $100 OEM and can be run in VM.
 
frostbyte5014 said:
Wow, thats got to be a world record for a Cyrix.
Click to expand...

It still runs great, The only reason I retired it was because I decided to move it to a VM. If anything happened I could restore a backup of my site to the old server change the port forwarding in my router and put it back in service. Its been one of the more reliable and I believe oldest systems I own. The motherboard is an ASUS slot 1 with the cytix on a slot 1 to socket 360 adapter. The keyboard plug on the motherboard is bad but since the system normally runs headless it does not really matter. The system was originally built totally low budget as just a development server but it was so rock solid that I made it my primary web server years ago.

purple_minion said:
I wouldn't trust virtual box snap shots. I had a machine get borked up somehow and the only fix was to delete all the old snap shots in a weird fashion. I even tried editing the xml files to force it to use them. All I got were weird error messages and they weren't really helpful. It refused to load the vm. I would supplement the snapshots with some kind of real backup, though snap shots are good for the quickie test of something.
Click to expand...

You know I have been worried about that. I try to create backups of my website every so often just to be sure I have it.
 
Fubs said:
The only need I have in my office is for a dedicated file server for backups and file sharing. After using a Windows 2K then 2k3 server running RAID 1 then RAID 5, I opted to use Windows Home Server after hearing such good things about it. If you haven't heard or tried it, visit: http://www.wegotserved.com/ for more info.

But to summarize, I love it because not only is it a file server, but it can backup up to 10 Windows PCs via the network and in the event of a crash, you can simply input the WHS restore CD and it will scan your network for your WHS and restore any partition to the system. So in the event of a hard drive crash, just pop in a new disk, partition it appropriately via the WHS restore disc and then 20-30 minutes later (or longer if you have a lot of stuff) the computer is back to how it was.

Before WHS, I used to use Ghost to clone a static image and then backup to the server just my data files. Now I don't bother as the WHS will backup everything and you can even set certain files or folder not to be backed up to avoid taking up too much space. It can also be used as a Windows Remote Desktop gateway. so if you're paying for LogMeIn Plus or GoToMyPC you can cancel those services. There are also a bunch of user made add-ins to enhance the product. I currently have my WHS working as an iTunes server at home to share music to the whole family, plus I use it to stream saved movies to my PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC.

Another thing I like is that you can expand the storage exponentially. So long as you have data ports (SATA, IDE, USB) you can add any drive to the drive pool and the server will simply expand the total disc capacity. And for redunancy, while it does not do any form of RAID, it does duplicate any folder marked for duplication. So if you have more than 1 disk, WHS will duplicate the data on two or more drives. And unlike say a RAID 5 setup, with WHS you can mount any drive in any machine that supports NTFS and read the data. With RAID 5, if your RAID controller is hosed you'll need a compatible one before you can get access to your data.

Anyway, if you need more than just a glorified NAS, you can get Windows 2008 and if you like the built-in backup features of WHS, it's about $100 OEM and can be run in VM.
Click to expand...

I use a Windows Home Server as well, but I'm also working from a home office so a full server wasn't really needed. I'm very happy with it.
 
To the OP, thanks for the thread 'cause it has me thinking.

My son's office was moving a month ago and disposing of all the IT equipment free to employees. He didn't need anything so he called me. He picked up for me a "Dell Xeon server". Have not seen it yet, but looking forward to playing with it, but I have zero experience or education with servers.

What can I do with it for the business? I hear a lot about HDD images of customer's machines. How much storage space would I need ?
What else do you use it for? Accessing tools from shared files?
I am sure that it would of course give me experience setting up a server environment. Is there a particular book or reference I should have?

We have a large family and all together on network six computers and two xbox's. What is the benefit there?
 
No one wants to answer? lol Must be all the beer this weekend. :D I'm really curious what the benefits are using VM over a physical server. If your hard drive crashes then you lose both the file server and your computer, so backups are moot. Except that you have to backup the VM to another physical device or machine as well.... doesn't that defeat the point of virtualizing the server? I can see if you have software that you want to run that needs a web server or something, but then couldn't you just install apache on your normal machine? Sorry, just confused here. I'm really interested in this and if there are benefits to it, I'll definitely do it. I don't have a server at the moment, but was planning on getting one. If this is a better option, I'll do this.
 
chrisaroz said:
http://tinyurl.com/25g6e2b
Click to expand...

Yeah, I already did that. Like I said, I have no experience in servers so reading all of the pros and cons in technical terms means nothing to me. I'm asking for personal experience. You'd think that with as many posts as I have here in many topics that I would be taken seriously when asking a question instead of being treated like I'm a new leecher with 3 posts. I always consult Google first unless I'm asking for personal experiences. Thanks for the reply, though.
 
A lot of places will build virtual servers purely to save space. They may like to keep specific tasks to specific servers so instead of buying different physical machines, they just buy 1 high spec server & then create multiple VMs on that.
 
Eddie said:
A lot of places will build virtual servers purely to save space. They may like to keep specific tasks to specific servers so instead of buying different physical machines, they just buy 1 high spec server & then create multiple VMs on that.
Click to expand...

Now that makes sense, but what about running a virtual server on your everyday desktop or laptop? I can see where it would come in handy for running apps that require being run from a webserver and keeping it separate from your host PC by not having to install a web server to it. But really that's the only advantage I see. Unless you have multiple computers in your office and want to control it enough to require a server, but don't want to use a physical one. Then I could see you installing it on your primary office PC. I primarily use a laptop. So I don't know if I would benefit from it or not. I have a couple computers at home for the kids and do not have an extra one at the shop yet. I just use my laptop for everything. I have a shared folder on it just for backing up client information to it. I don't think running any type of server would benefit me. Well, I mean virtually. I want a file server. I could run a VM to host that, but there really is no point since the data is still going to be stored on my laptop. If that drive fails, the VM is going with it. So I might as well just keep using a shared folder until I build a file server. Unless I'm wrong about my assumptions or am missing something of value.
 
I occasionally run a virtual server on my gaming desktop to help with my certification progress. Saves me having a couple of physical domain servers (or something along those lines) lying about my office/home.

As I'm a one man show, I don't need anything other then a file server at this time. I could probably have run it off my gaming desktop but the power consumption from it would not have been cost effective in the long run & I also needed a home media server so that's why I picked up the low powered mini-itx system.

By definition, any pc/laptop can be a server. If you share files on your pc, it's acting as a file server. Whether or not you need a specific server OS really comes down to your individual needs & from what you've said, something along the lines of a samba file server like the one I'm running would suit you just fine.
 
If you only need a file server then there is no need for you to go the virtual server route imo, unless you wanted to do some training or practicing in a VM.
 
@ vdub12

I read on petri the other day that people are having really good results with running and backing up vmware machines with dropbox. I'm going to give it a try soon.
 
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