System Requirements

[mikefrommichiga]

I have taken over a network and our licensing is a bit out of date for some products. This is going to force us to spend a bit in other areas so I need to be creative.

I do have a fairly new Dell 310 tower available. I need to build a file server and a web server. I can upgrade the RAM to 16MB and add two 900GB 10k rpm drives for about $1500.00 That would give me the storage space I need. I am just wondering if it’s a good idea on this server.

I was thinking vSphere Essentials. That would give me one more available license for growth or to test things with.

The processor is an Intel Xeon X3440@2.53Hz 2.53GHz.

My question is would this be a suitable system for running a web server and a file server? At anyone time I estimate between 50 & 100 people hitting the web server. The file server will get less utilization that the web server. We are moving to Office 365 and utilizing SharePoint document libraries so the file server use will be reduced moving forward.

[a_p_]

The system is listed in VMware's HCL, so it should work just fine. I think the CPU (4 cores plus HyperThreading) should be more than sufficient for this workload. What you should make sure is that you have a supported hardware RAID controller with BBU in the system. This makes a huge difference in disk performance. Also don't forget backup and disaster recovery options (spare hardware or proper SLA's with the hardware vendor).

André

[mikefrommichiga]

Ok, I took a screenshot of my device manager. This server is sitting in our LA office. I am in Michigan so I have limited physical access at the moment. This is what my controller setup looks like.

On your other point, are you indicating I need to duplicate a server as a hot spare incase the production server goes down or at least make arrangements with Dell to make sure one is shipped same or next day incase this goes down?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

The RAID controller (PERC 6/iR) unfortunately doesn't support write-cache (BBU), so you may want to take a look at http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pvaul/topics/en/us/raid_controller?c=u... to find a controller with a BBU option, which is supported for your system by DELL and is also on VMware's HCL (http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl).

Regarding disaster recovery. Usually HW vendors offer different support levels, from which you should select the one that fits your needs and requirements. With running multiple VM's (server workloads) on a single hardware, it may be even more important to get it back to work as fast as possible.

André