Server job for local business, please advise

[nesrinamb]

Hi guys thanks again for the info especially regarding VPN's and the need for a special router, ect. I've let him know this info and he seems ok about it. Could someone please recommend a suitable router our needs in this situation. As I said there's only going to be two PC's connected to the DC, then about 3-4 roaming laptops that will VPN in to the

Also do you guys think 6GB RAM will suffice for our needs, or should I go 8? It came with 4GB but in the undesirable configuration of many 512mb DIMM's.
And what do I search for when looking for RAM? Does standard DDR2 desktop RAM fit or has it got to be server stuff?

you can get away with a tz 205 sonicwall if its only going to be a few people, actually the tz105 might be enough.

As for your ram question that has already been covered several times and i personally start at 8gb

 

[d3v]

Hi, nope that's not the one. Here's some photos of all the removal caddies from this ML350. Note that the black plastic caddies have 8 in total.

I don't understand what the three metal caddies are for as there are no free SATA/IDE or other data connections on the motherboard that could connect an optical/hard drive to, so why are they there? All the SATA/SAS connections are in a row on a databoard in which those 8 black plastic caddies slide in to.

My main question though, is what kind of hard drive fits in to these black plastic caddies?

edit: just googled the part number and I can see they are 2.5" SAS drive caddies. I guess I need a 2.5" SAS hard drive, then? What I don't understand is why doesn't a business server such as this calibre allow for full size 3.5" drives which are obviously more reliable and faster than their 2.5" counterparts. Also can I buy caddies that can accomodate 2.5" SATA hard drives, if so what specific caddy type?

 

[Markverhyden]

Those are called blank fillers.

 

[d3v]

Those are called blank fillers.

You mean the metal or black plastic caddies?

edit: just had another google search on those black plastic caddy trays and your right they are just blanks... lol I feel a little silly right now!

Looking on ebay I see that server hard drives generally come fitted with a caddy tray. I also found out non-HP SAS/SATA drives do not show their SMART data, however this shouldn't be a problem as I can always use a Windows-based SMART reader, or just remove the drive and fit it to my workstation for diagnostics should I ever need to.

Will an SAS drive work on my Coolermaster SATA bay that is build into the top of the case or do SAS drives require more volts to power-up?



Also why hasn't the ML350 G5 feature the ability to install a 3.5" SAS/SATA drive. As far as I can tell it will only except 2.5" sized drives.... surely for a business server this isn't right?

 

[Markverhyden]

You should have been able to tell just by looking. The plastic caddies have no holes for securing the drives, not to mention no back opening for connecting to the back plane, while the metal ones did. All SAS I have seen over the years always connected to a back plane.

All you could ever want to know about SAS vs SATA.

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/proliantstorage/drives-enclosures/sata-vs-sas.pdf

Never tried hooking up a SAS to SATA or vice a versa.

 

[TAPtech]

You mean the metal or black plastic caddies?

edit: just had another google search on those black plastic caddy trays and your right they are just blanks... lol I feel a little silly right now!

Looking on ebay I see that server hard drives generally come fitted with a caddy tray. I also found out non-HP SAS/SATA drives do not show their SMART data, however this shouldn't be a problem as I can always use a Windows-based SMART reader, or just remove the drive and fit it to my workstation for diagnostics should I ever need to.

Will an SAS drive work on my Coolermaster SATA bay that is build into the top of the case or do SAS drives require more volts to power-up?



Also why hasn't the ML350 G5 feature the ability to install a 3.5" SAS/SATA drive. As far as I can tell it will only except 2.5" sized drives.... surely for a business server this isn't right?

SATA drives typically work with SAS controllers. There are differences in the drive logic, and SAS drives are much better for servers. A SAS drive will most likely not fit into your coolermaster bay. If you take a close look at the connector, the SAS drive has a plastic piece bridging between the power and data cables. You would be able to plug in regular SATA power and data cables as that little piece of plastic will block them.

I have to admit I chuckled a bit when I saw the picture you posted. If you had a regular caddy in your hand you would have figured out that was just a blank very quickly

2.5" drives are actually a lot more common for servers than you might think, for a number of reasons. Having the smaller diameter platter is beneficial as the surface speed at the head remains more constant. There is also generally less vibration with the smaller drives as the platter weighs less and is smaller diameter. Also, you can simply fit more 2.5" drives in the same space as the 3.5" drives. In a desktop, who cares, but in rack mounted server land, it makes a big difference.

Last 350 series I had was a rack mount, and didn't have those big trays. I'm guessing those are for cabled 3.5" drives or optical drives.

Used hard drives are definitely a no no, but to be honest so is a used server! You might be best off getting good condition working pull SAS drives from eBay. Get the HP drives. They have a green and amber light. Set up RAID for redundancy. If a drive fails or is in predicted failure state the green light goes out and the amber light goes on. Let your client know to keep an eye out for it.

You are learning here. At the end of the day you'll have a dated but high quality server. You will be able to replace parts as they fail without complete system failure. Eventually your client can get a new replacement server and the transition will not be hard. Then you can learn how to migrate a server.

 

[Markverhyden]

SATA drives typically work with SAS controllers. There are differences in the drive logic, and SAS drives are much better for servers. A SAS drive will most likely not fit into your coolermaster bay. If you take a close look at the connector, the SAS drive has a plastic piece bridging between the power and data cables. You would be able to plug in regular SATA power and data cables as that little piece of plastic will block them.

I have to admit I chuckled a bit when I saw the picture you posted. If you had a regular caddy in your hand you would have figured out that was just a blank very quickly

2.5" drives are actually a lot more common for servers than you might think, for a number of reasons. Having the smaller diameter platter is beneficial as the surface speed at the head remains more constant. There is also generally less vibration with the smaller drives as the platter weighs less and is smaller diameter. Also, you can simply fit more 2.5" drives in the same space as the 3.5" drives. In a desktop, who cares, but in rack mounted server land, it makes a big difference.

Last 350 series I had was a rack mount, and didn't have those big trays. I'm guessing those are for cabled 3.5" drives or optical drives.

Used hard drives are definitely a no no, but to be honest so is a used server! You might be best off getting good condition working pull SAS drives from eBay. Get the HP drives. They have a green and amber light. Set up RAID for redundancy. If a drive fails or is in predicted failure state the green light goes out and the amber light goes on. Let your client know to keep an eye out for it.

You are learning here. At the end of the day you'll have a dated but high quality server. You will be able to replace parts as they fail without complete system failure. Eventually your client can get a new replacement server and the transition will not be hard. Then you can learn how to migrate a server.

Thanks for the observation re: SAS vs SATA. I just looked at a SAS drive in my Dell R710 and that squarish plastic piece between the power and data connectors is there, which I had not noticed, which is not there on SATA.

 

[d3v]

Thanks for the insightful info, I still need to decide weather to go for SAS or SATA. He called me just now asking about getting the hard drives for the server asap, it seems his business partner wants the server up and running very soon so it's crunch time from now on I think

Can someone link me to a brand new HP SAS hard drive that will work in this ML350 G5. I want 120gb at a minimum, but no more than 160gb. What sort of price are we talking here for such a drive? I'm familiar with SATA drive prices but SAS is out of my knowledge base I must admit!

Would two of these @£153/each work & be compatible with this ML350 G5? They are 10,000RPM, thats nearly 300 more than a desktop drive, so I'm happy with that and can't see the point in spending extra for a 15,000 SAS drive for this type of small business setting.

That's over £300 for both hard drives.

Or

Would two WD scorpio black 2.5 SATA drives @£50 (a £200 saving!) each be an ok choice? I understand with them not being HP that the SMART diagnostics will not work but will everything else be ok, for example would the RAID controller in the ML350 G5 be able to read/configure them? Is there any other downsides to using non-HP drives in HP server boxes other than not being able to read SMART data?

 

[TAPtech]

SAS drives cost a good bit more that SATA drives.

I am really surprised how cheap this is, I am guessing that these lower capacity drives are cheap these days as most drives are much higher capacity now.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-2-5-INCH-E...=1380716963&sr=8-8&keywords=hp+sas+hard+drive

Also check new egg for HP SAS drives. They have some 350GB+ drives that are a lot more expensive. eBay also has a lot of these drives, but I have had a lot of junk parts from them lately...

PLEASE check to make sure that drive fits, I just did a quick amazon search and am not recommending that specific drive. Just trying to help out.

 

[d3v]

SAS drives cost a good bit more that SATA drives.

I am really surprised how cheap this is, I am guessing that these lower capacity drives are cheap these days as most drives are much higher capacity now.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-2-5-INCH-E...=1380716963&sr=8-8&keywords=hp+sas+hard+drive

Also check new egg for HP SAS drives. They have some 350GB+ drives that are a lot more expensive. eBay also has a lot of these drives, but I have had a lot of junk parts from them lately...

PLEASE check to make sure that drive fits, I just did a quick amazon search and am not recommending that specific drive. Just trying to help out.

Hi thanks for the info but I edited my post above.

 

[Simmy]

This thread is making me nervous.

Also, I sold a well specced ML350 G5 server with 11GB RAM and 2 x 72Gb 10k + 3 x 146Gb 10k SAS drives for under £200 on ebay. They sell for that price fairly often. Is it an option to return the one you have and purchase one with drives already installed?

 

[d3v]

Hi all, he ended up buying a brand new £750 Dell server, it arrived today, I'll be setting it up tomorrow or Monday for him, will no doubt need to use this thread for much needed help/advice/tips soon enough!

 

[d3v]

Hi all, I'm at the job right no, been here for past 4 hours trying to setup this Dell PowerEdge T110 II. Will keep you updated

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

ouch...a sub thousand dollar "server"....T 100 class ....glorified Dimension desktop!

What are the servers TCP/IP settings?
Can you confirm the DNS fowarders?

if you ping a DNS name like www.google.com go you get replies?
If you ping a public IP like 208.67.222.222 do you get replies

 

[d3v]

ouch...a sub thousand dollar "server"....T 100 class ....glorified Dimension desktop!

What are the servers TCP/IP settings?
Can you confirm the DNS fowarders?

if you ping a DNS name like www.google.com go you get replies?
If you ping a public IP like 208.67.222.222 do you get replies

hi mate just edited my post above as I realised I've been quite silly and not added any roles yet. The reason I missed this is because the initial setup process was very different (more automated) than when I first setup that test server, and I simply thought that it had replaced the "add roles" feature... now I've jut realised it does not and am now adding the requires server roles.

One difference I notice is that the server roles option is not shown in the server manage window like it was on my test server, instead it is tucked away in control panel>administrative tools.

That's what got me, but I reckon I've sorted it now. I also found which of the 5 cables belonged to the server and plugged it in to the router, thus eliminating the switchhub.

 

[TAPtech]

What version of Windows Server is it running now?

The T100 line gets a lot of flack, and yeah, it is not very good for a server, but in many cases it is way better than the alternative- users saving a bunch of important stuff to their workstations and 8 different copies of the same spreadsheet being shared around the workplace. yuck!

It is also a good stepping stone so the company can easily move into a more solid piece of hardware as they expand. I guess that is an optimistic view...

Stonecat and Angrygeek may call it a "gateway drug" instead.

 

[BadBoy House]

The PowerEdge T100 is a really basic Dell server.

Presumable he bought it with Small Business Server 2011 or Essentials?

There are SBS 2011 setup guides all over the net - you can get it fully up and running ready to go in under an hour once the O/S is installed.