SBS 2011 Custom Build from NewEgg

[Pclink]

Here is a custom build I plan to use for a client this year. They currently have SBS 2003 and I plan to migrate them to SBS 2011 Standard. They already have a battery backup. It's a landscaping company that uses Exchange and SQL. They have 5 workstations on the Domain. Nothing too big, but the server is having a lot of issues. This should give them a much needed upgrade. Let me know your thoughts or questions, or if you see anything wrong with the setup, thanks!

The new server will be on a Raid 1 with a hot spare (hence 3 drives). They currently have a 250GB Raid 1 with no spare.

My Custom SBS 2011 Build:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=17158231

Battery Backup they have:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102133

They also have an external 1TB USB 3.0 drive using Storage Craft as a full image backup. Then an online backup, backing up the external.

 

[angry_geek]

I'm not sure how to say this other than, NO NO NO NO NO!

Everyone on this board can custom build machines, but we're talking a server here, presumably, mission critical. What happens when a drive or a controller fails? How long will they be down before you can get a replacement? Get a Dell reseller account or at least, partner direct. You'll have an assigned server rep. Call them, tell them what you need, and you'll have it cheaper and faster than what the website tells you, even the partner store. You can get a T410 with better hardware than you've configured (ecc ram for instance) and a 3-year nbd warranty for the same money.

 

[crashtech]

Well, only you know if you can do right by your customers by going this route. I'll limit my contribution to a minor suggestion, you might look at a Supermicro barebone system like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101378

The Asus board you chose is nice, but it has extra features geared toward workstation use that you may not need. The above takes care of PSU, case and mobo all in one whack, it's nice looking, cost effective, and has good name recognition.

Oh, yeah, and you might want to get some ECC instead of gamer memory.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Fine for a personal home server...but I don't do "motherboard of the month club" home built cloners for businesses...especially a server. Are you 100% sure that RAID controller fully tested/certified compatible with that motherboard? Same with that memory. What if that RAID controller a weird glitch with certain motherboards that results in a slight hiccup once a week or so.. See...going with tier-1 servers, all parts are fully tested/designed to work with each other resulting in a rock stable platform....all components have fully certified drivers for Servers. Again..end results is a nice stable system.

I love Antec Sonata cases (tis what I have at home), Asus motherboards (same), etc etc...but for a business...an HP Proliant ML3xx series or a Dell PE T410 (minimum) or T610 (better). H700 RAID controller. 32 gigs RAM.

SBS will run/perform painfully slow on a single spindle.
SBS...you do RAID 1 for the OS, you install SQL and the Infostore and users shares on a second volume done in RAID...so have a second RAID 1 or RAID 5 or RAID 10 creating a huge drive to put those on. And span the pagefile on both. For a network as small as 5...a smaller RAID 1 for the OS and a larger RAID 1 for all else would suffice.

Having the OS and pagefile and infostore and data shares and SQL and hosted apps all on the same spindle..yeouch!

 

[emsbronco]

Personally, I don't have a problem with doing custom builds for servers. But, I don't recommend it for everybody. When doing a custom build server, you are taking the responsibility of warranty and support. If you have a decent amount of experience with RAID controllers and properly speccing and building computers, then go for it.

The first thing I see with your specs is non-ECC RAM. The motherboard also doesn't show ECC support. That is usually a good indicator of whether the board was intended to be used as a server or not. I usually spec Supermicro or Tyan motherboards and use the tested components list from the manufacturer.

You need more Hard drives like Stonecat said...seperate the different loads across multiple spindles. i normally set up the OS only on a smaller mirrored array, then, depending on client's budget using either RAID 1 or 5, set up the exchange database and WSUS storage on another RAID array, and a third array for the file repository.
When you add more hard drives, make sure you do a proper power usage calculation to ensure that the PSU will be large enough.

Anytime you build a server, you want to use seperate "spindles" for each major role. This reduces hard drive thrashing and improves overall performance. Exchange on one, SQL on another, OS on another, etc. The reason I put WSUS and Exchange on the same spindle is because I usually schedule updates once weekly overnight when the business is closed, so the impact on exchange would be minimal.

On some occasions, I do spec name brand servers, but will do RAM and Hard Drive upgrades in my shop to reduce costs.

As for SBS 2011 standard, I highly recommend that you build a test server and install it a couple of times and the migration from 2003 to 2011 is a multi-step process. Microsoft has documentation on how to do it, but it is not something I'd recommend to do on your own if this is your first exposure to SBS.
Microsoft did a good job with the wizards, but that does not counter the fact that you are still managing a server with multiple roles and if you run into any oddball issues, in depth knowledge of Exchange and Active directory will be helpful.

 

[twincountycomputers]

agreed, buy servers, don't build them

I have a competitor that likes to buy desktops from walmart, upgrade the memory and load SBS on them..... I take great delight in finding them and pointing out what they really cost to a customer... especially since the customer has usually paid $1500 - $2000 or more for this piece of garbage.

 

[emsbronco]

I have a competitor that likes to buy desktops from walmart, upgrade the memory and load SBS on them

That's just scary. Computers sold at Walmart are barely consumer grade. Doing something like that would make me wonder if the SBS licenses were even valid.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

agreed, buy servers, don't build them

I have a competitor that likes to buy desktops from walmart, upgrade the memory and load SBS on them..... I take great delight in finding them and pointing out what they really cost to a customer... especially since the customer has usually paid $1500 - $2000 or more for this piece of garbage.

LOL...yikes!

Yeah..here's your new server...a nice Celeron or AMD with a single 1 year SATA drive. Bwah hah!

I wonder how many crash on him. Gotta run soooo poorly. Poor clients that have no idea what a real server runs like, missing a nice increase in production. That pizza tech probably has no idea of the features of SBS and never teaches the clients on how to use them either...

 

[Pclink]

Thank you for the valuable feedback. I've adjusted the server so it has compatible hardware from the vendor lists as well as a new motherboard with ECC memory. I've also added more hard drives to split up the Exchange/SQL/OS on different drives. The guy isn't too happy with his current HP server. He says it's been nothing but problems. Boot up time and shutdown take over an hour. (Seriously I timed shutdown and it took 1hr 15 mins) Everything is running off RAID 1 hard drives, it's dual core 2.0 Ghz and has 4GB of memory (can't upgrade cause it's SBS 2003 32-bit) He uses over 65% memory most of the time. His idea of shutting down the server though is just unplugging it. I'm trying to get him away from doing that. Hopefully he'll go with a new server. I'm afraid the thing is about ready to die....

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

The guy isn't too happy with his current HP server. He says it's been nothing but problems. Boot up time and shutdown take over an hour. (Seriously I timed shutdown and it took 1hr 15 mins) Everything is running off RAID 1 hard drives, it's dual core 2.0 Ghz and has 4GB of memory (can't upgrade cause it's SBS 2003 32-bit

I bet it's just an ML100 series....or maybe an ML310 series....basically glorified desktops trying to be a server. Desktop processor, desktop hard drives (SATA).....so yeah a Pentium D with a pair of desktop SATA drives RAID 1...and SBS will be a slug! Prime example. Client thinks they're saving money with by purchasing a server for 2 grand...but in the long run..paying a consultant hourly rates to work on that server...do Microsoft updates, reboots....yeah..I'll bill at 125/hour to stare at Microsoft update progress bars inching along slowly which take 3 hours to install on this POS desktop wannabe server.

SBS
SAS drives (10k or 15k rpm)
RAID 1 OS, and a separate RAID 1 or 5 or 10 for data/infostore.

 

[FoolishTech]

The guy isn't too happy with his current HP server. He says it's been nothing but problems. Boot up time and shutdown take over an hour. (Seriously I timed shutdown and it took 1hr 15 mins)

I don't know about boot up, but I've seen that a lot with old Exchange installs on shutdown. Just some food for thought, but if you stop all Exchange services before attempting to shut down, it should all but eliminate your insane shutdown/restart time. I think I saw a technet article on it once but not positive. EDIT, found it here with an explanation.

For this reason, I have a few clients who are trained to use a batch file that stops all Exchange services then initiates the shutdown/restart, instead of doing it the traditional way. Something like:

net stop MSExchangeES
net stop IMAP4Svc
net stop POP3Svc
net stop RESvc
net stop MSExchangeSRS
net stop MSExchangeMGMT
net stop MSExchangeMTA
net stop MSExchangeIS /Y
net stop MSExchangeSA /Y
shutdown -r -t 0 -f

to restart. In the last line you could replace the -r with a -s to shutdown instead.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Another reason you see SBS run slowly...often amateurs install it..and they slap on an antivirus package with default settings...without knowing how to properly setup the antivirus scan rules, file types, and exclusions. There is a TON of directories to exclude, as well as change the default file type list to scan.

 

[Pclink]

It's an ML310 that he bought from some other company for 8 Grand. He said he spent over 10 grand for the server plus setting it up.

Thanks for the tip on shutting it down. I will give that a shot next time I go to restart it.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

It's an ML310 that he bought from some other company for 8 Grand. He said he spent over 10 grand for the server plus setting it up.

Wow no wonder he's angry..he got killed on the price An ML310 is almost a good server (HP's good ML series servers start with the ML350). I can't fathom how it was optioned out to be over 10 grand...I would have a hard time optioning one out to be over 6 grand. It must have been optioned out to have SAS drives.