Getting a server, need tips etc.

[VirtusGraphics]

Hello all, I am looking to get a server but have sooo many questions and concerns.

Hope this is the right section.

 

Introduction

My family and I work in a professional photography business, so of course this use a lot of space. We have several hundred customers, and each customer takes roughly between 5 to 30 GB of space each.

We work 4–5 machines at the same time against one server (Currently some 10TB NAS I think). Over the years, this has led us to have to purchase several harddrives and NAS servers. Over the time we have noticed that it becomes incredibly slow to work. We always buy great custom PC's, so they're not the problem. Today I decided to test it.

 

We went 3 people fetching files from the NAS at the same time, resulting in speeds around 2–3MB/s each. One file is normally 150-300 MB. When one person accessed it alone, speed was up around 11 MB/s.

Tested the same, only 3 PC's from one PC, and noticed a significant difference in speeds, letting each machine get around 20-30 MB/s each. One on one got around 110 MB/s. So it was apparent; we want a speedy server that we can upgrade and switch out HDD's ourselves. I have decent computer knowledge, but don't know enough about networking and servers, which is why I am hoping someone here might be able to help.

 

The server

The server I have been looking at is some Fujitsu Primergy RX2540 (M2 - E5-2620V4). We need to buy from this one online store, due to we buying it on business and want their warranty 3 year warranty (normal business warranty is half a year or so) and other things. They're reliable. https://www.komplett.no

Now this one comes without harddrives, so I was thinking of getting some Seagate Barracuda PRO 10TB's for it. Starting with maybe one to four.

 

Need help

What I need help with is recommendations. Can you find a better server on the site (linked above) suited for our needs?

Here's some pointers;

– Can we have direct ethernet line between the server and PC? Say server has 4xEthernet ports, can we connect 3 PC's directly, last to a router which spreads to the last 3 low-prioority PC's?

– How do I calculate the power usage/need? When will it need another PSU?

– How well does it handle multiple PC's accessing many and/or large files at the same time?

– We have a cellar that is cool that it can stay in, but we may need to renovate room due to it being minus degrees in the winter and can get moist in there. Might until further keep it in some different room.

– As I said, several PC's at once. Maximum of 5–6 at the same time, usually 2–3.

– We often transfer RAW files in to one customer folder, so need good speed for both that and modifying many at the same time (Applying XMP configs through Camera RAW).

– Open single large files. Normal file sizes are 150–400 MB. Some printsheets can get up to 5–6 GB.

– We may want raid 1 or 5. We always have to back up our files. Currently backup is done by connecting an HDD to our machine, then move from NAS to the external HDD. We want to eliminate this progress to "hot-swaps" to save time, which saves money. A lot of it. And is more secure. Issue is, I know nothing of how it works and if it possible to do the hotswap thing, so I want to know more about this.

– General introduction to servers, appriciate any nice tutorials, videos, guides, written comments and such.

 

Thank you.

[TheCherryKing]

Do you plan to use hard drives or solid state drives?

[brwainer]

I haven't looked at the server and I'm not interested in making recommendations for what hardware you should buy - but I do want to address a few of your questions.

 

5 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

Now this one comes without harddrives, so I was thinking of getting some Seagate Barracuda PRO 10TB's for it. Starting with maybe one to four.

Those are not server/enterprise rated, nor even NAS rated (NAS rating is lower than enterprise). I wouldn't go with anything less than WD Red, HGST NAS, or Seagate Ironwolf drives. One reason is that the Barracuda drives (or any other desktop drive) don't support Time Limited Error Recovery, or TLER - bsaically they assume that they are the only drive with the data, and therefore have to make every effort possible to read a bit in case there is an error. Oftentimes they take so long that the RAID controller or software (like Storage Spaces, ZFS, etc) will think that the drive has died completely and drop it out of the pool. Drives with TLER on the other hand will abort the process and report the error, at which point the controller or software can read the data from the other drive(s) in the array, and also use that data from the other drive(s) to rewrite the bit that couldn't be read from the first drive. The second reason I wouldn't use anything less than a NAS drive is that desktop drives do not have the physical construction and features required to handle vibration from many adjacent drives. Anything over 3 drives near each other, unless mounted in vibration-dampening mounts, will create enough vibration to make desktop drives have to redo reads and writes, or read and write more slowly, and will also lessen the lifespan of the drives.

 

19 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

– Can we have direct ethernet line between the server and PC? Say server has 4xEthernet ports, can we connect 3 PC's directly, last to a router which spreads to the last 3 low-prioority PC's?

That will work, but you will have to set up something like bridging on the server so that the computers can talk to each other and to the router (assuming the desktop computers don't have second ethernet ports to be connected to the router separately).

 

21 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

– How do I calculate the power usage/need? When will it need another PSU?

The server should already have an appropriately sized PSU based on the CPU installed in it and assuming that all drive cages, memory slots, and PCIe slots are full. If you aren't sure this is the case, then you should check with the site you are going to buy the server from - they can help you make sure it is appropriate.

 

25 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

– We have a cellar that is cool that it can stay in, but we may need to renovate room due to it being minus degrees in the winter and can get moist in there. Might until further keep it in some different room.

An environment that is not stable is not ideal, but you can make due with a dehumidifier.

[TheCherryKing]

It appears that server only has 2.5" bays. The 2.5" drives are more expensive and have less capacity.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id stay away from that server, not only is it loud and will use lots of power, it will also be a pain to setup.

 

Id just get something like this for the nas https://www.komplett.no/product/890462/datautstyr/lagring/nettverkslagring-nas/synology-nas-ds1515-5-bay-nas

or this if you want more drives

https://www.komplett.no/product/890464/datautstyr/lagring/nettverkslagring-nas/synology-nas-ds2415-12-bay-nas

 

36 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

We may want raid 1 or 5. We always have to back up our files. Currently backup is done by connecting an HDD to our machine, then move from NAS to the external HDD. We want to eliminate this progress to "hot-swaps" to save time, which saves money. A lot of it. And is more secure. Issue is, I know nothing of how it works and if it possible to do the hotswap thing, so I want to know more about this.

You may want to look into tape backups. For large amounts of data there very cheap. Other wise look into something like s3.

 

36 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

Can we have direct ethernet line between the server and PC? Say server has 4xEthernet ports, can we connect 3 PC's directly, last to a router which spreads to the last 3 low-prioority PC's?

Don't do that, you want a switch inbetween. The switch won't slow it down. If you really speed limited, get 10gbe.

 

[VirtusGraphics]

16 hours ago, TheCherryKing said:

Do you plan to use hard drives or solid state drives?

Will be using normal mechanical HDD's.

 

16 hours ago, brwainer said:

I haven't looked at the server and I'm not interested in making recommendations for what hardware you should buy - but I do want to address a few of your questions.

 

Those are not server/enterprise rated, nor even NAS rated (NAS rating is lower than enterprise). I wouldn't go with anything less than WD Red, HGST NAS, or Seagate Ironwolf drives. One reason is that the Barracuda drives (or any other desktop drive) don't support Time Limited Error Recovery, or TLER - bsaically they assume that they are the only drive with the data, and therefore have to make every effort possible to read a bit in case there is an error. Oftentimes they take so long that the RAID controller or software (like Storage Spaces, ZFS, etc) will think that the drive has died completely and drop it out of the pool. Drives with TLER on the other hand will abort the process and report the error, at which point the controller or software can read the data from the other drive(s) in the array, and also use that data from the other drive(s) to rewrite the bit that couldn't be read from the first drive. The second reason I wouldn't use anything less than a NAS drive is that desktop drives do not have the physical construction and features required to handle vibration from many adjacent drives. Anything over 3 drives near each other, unless mounted in vibration-dampening mounts, will create enough vibration to make desktop drives have to redo reads and writes, or read and write more slowly, and will also lessen the lifespan of the drives.

 

That will work, but you will have to set up something like bridging on the server so that the computers can talk to each other and to the router (assuming the desktop computers don't have second ethernet ports to be connected to the router separately).

 

The server should already have an appropriately sized PSU based on the CPU installed in it and assuming that all drive cages, memory slots, and PCIe slots are full. If you aren't sure this is the case, then you should check with the site you are going to buy the server from - they can help you make sure it is appropriate.

 

An environment that is not stable is not ideal, but you can make due with a dehumidifier.

I have heard about this but it completely slipped my mind. Thanks, I will see what I can find. As for the computers with direct ethernet line, mine has but I don't know about the others so will have to check that.

 

16 hours ago, TheCherryKing said:

It appears that server only has 2.5" bays. The 2.5" drives are more expensive and have less capacity.

Thank you for pointing that out! Didn't notice!

15 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id stay away from that server, not only is it loud and will use lots of power, it will also be a pain to setup.

 

Id just get something like this for the nas https://www.komplett.no/product/890462/datautstyr/lagring/nettverkslagring-nas/synology-nas-ds1515-5-bay-nas

or this if you want more drives

https://www.komplett.no/product/890464/datautstyr/lagring/nettverkslagring-nas/synology-nas-ds2415-12-bay-nas

 

You may want to look into tape backups. For large amounts of data there very cheap. Other wise look into something like s3.

 

Don't do that, you want a switch inbetween. The switch won't slow it down. If you really speed limited, get 10gbe.

 

Noise isn't really a big concern as it will, when everything is done, be in a different room no-one is in. Power draw may be a concern.

I won't be going with that one I specified in OP anyway, as @TheCherryKing pointed out it's a 2.5" not 3.5" drive bay thing.

That being said I would want to avoid NAS all together and get a proper business server.

 

I don't believe tape backup would be an ideal solution. I am unaware of the policy we have on saving old customers, nor the laws for it, so will look in to that as well. Optimally we'd store everything in HDD's, but it'd be a shame if it started with data roting. Know of any ideal storage conditions for the drives?

 

S3 I have heard a lot of shit about. Sure they're cheap, but you can easily fuck something up and get a stupid high bill. It's also ever so often that we need to access a customer folder for various reasons, so it need to be easily accessible and fast. Our actual internet speed is also actually quite shit. 13Mb/s down and 1.2Mb/s up.

 

As for the port, I will try a direct line in mine at least. I actually doubt the others have dual ethernet port like I do, so will have to do what you suggest.

[kasugatei]

16 hours ago, VirtusGraphics said:

an we have direct ethernet line between the server and PC? Say server has 4xEthernet ports, can we connect 3 PC's directly, last to a router which spreads to the last 3 low-prioority PC's?

yes you can but you will have no gain by using that approach 

 

16 hours ago, VirtusGraphics said:

How do I calculate the power usage/need? When will it need another PSU?

If we are talking about redundant PSUs, there are 2 options:

1. both PSUs split their load and in case of the failure on one PSU the second takes the whole load.

2. one PSU works on full load and in the case of the failure the other one takes over

 

Since the server load is unknown so far it is impossible to calculate power usage. But consider that rated PSU wattage will be the max draw.

 

16 hours ago, VirtusGraphics said:

We may want raid 1 or 5. We always have to back up our files. Currently backup is done by connecting an HDD to our machine, then move from NAS to the external HDD. We want to eliminate this progress to "hot-swaps" to save time, which saves money. A lot of it. And is more secure. Issue is, I know nothing of how it works and if it possible to do the hotswap thing, so I want to know more about this.

Please be noted that RAID is NOT a backup. It is just a redundancy in a case of one disk going wrong.

However, you can have eg. small (or big) Synology NAS and configure rsync to do the backups in intervals from the main server.

 

 

34 minutes ago, VirtusGraphics said:

That being said I would want to avoid NAS all together and get a proper business server

I've read your business case and what I can see is that you only need some good performing NAS. As the Electronics Wizardy suggested, 10GbE connection will make a nice performance boost. From your description there is no heavy duty processing involved so I don't see the point in spending lots of money on powerful machine.

 

 

What I would do is the following: 

- Make FreeNAS device with SSDs and 10GbE card inside. This would be a NAS for current projects and the speed should be fast enogh for multiple users using it simultaneously without issues. Of course, upgrade all existing PCs to 10GbE network with 10GbE switch.

- setup rsync to periodically backup all the data to the existing NAS

[VirtusGraphics]

36 minutes ago, Niksa said:

yes you can but you will have no gain by using that approach 

 

If we are talking about redundant PSUs, there are 2 options:

1. both PSUs split their load and in case of the failure on one PSU the second takes the whole load.

2. one PSU works on full load and in the case of the failure the other one takes over

 

Since the server load is unknown so far it is impossible to calculate power usage. But consider that rated PSU wattage will be the max draw.

 

Please be noted that RAID is NOT a backup. It is just a redundancy in a case of one disk going wrong.

However, you can have eg. small (or big) Synology NAS and configure rsync to do the backups in intervals from the main server.

 

 

I've read your business case and what I can see is that you only need some good performing NAS. As the Electronics Wizardy suggested, 10GbE connection will make a nice performance boost. From your description there is no heavy duty processing involved so I don't see the point in spending lots of money on powerful machine.

 

 

What I would do is the following: 

- Make FreeNAS device with SSDs and 10GbE card inside. This would be a NAS for current projects and the speed should be fast enogh for multiple users using it simultaneously without issues. Of course, upgrade all existing PCs to 10GbE network with 10GbE switch.

- setup rsync to periodically backup all the data to the existing NAS

Thanks for the clearing up on various points above.

I've never worked with RAID nor R-Sync. Hopefully there's some good tutorials on the net.

 

Not quite sure what you mean by making a FreeNAS thing though. You mean build a small computer with SSD's and install FreeNAS (An Open source NAS OS from what I gather) on it? Then set up R-Sync to other NAS device. When that second NAS is full, switch HDD's on it and keep going?

 

The NAS we have now is an Asustor AS-204T 4-bay. We've tried various brands and types over the years. This is the fastest one so far, but still not fast enough — especially since we went from using 8-bpc images to 10-bpc, making image files bigger that before.

[Erkel]

Buy a Dell or HP etc, I would stay away from the DIY idea as much as possible as its a business,  Sure you are going to cry about the price, and the DELL and HP sales reps will piss you around and try to rip you off at every opportunity by sneaking in high margin misc junk,  but that is just part of the games you have to play.

 

If you would like to buy from the company you mentioned, they do HP,  This the LFF version of one the servers they have on their site,

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/servers/proliant-servers/pip.specifications.hpe-proliant-dl380-gen9-e5-2620v4-2p-16gb-r-p840ar-12lff-800w-ps-server-s-buy.1009177640.html

 

12x 3.5 Drive bays, a decent raid card, CPU, RAM and dual power supplies.  Get them to configure it up with a 10GB card and get an HP 10Gb switch as part of the deal.

The last bastion of decent margin for the top tier server manufacturers is in the storage, so best to talk to some more experienced HP server people about using 3rd party drives, (ie WD GOLD drives) if the drive pricing they give you makes you want to vomit.

 

Post the quote here and we can advise further.

[kasugatei]

3 minutes ago, Erkel said:

Buy a Dell or HP etc

Please don't buy HP. 

 

FreeNAS can work with any server (never said DIY) hardware, however HP is super proprietary and you will end up buying only their (super expensive) stuff. You can use any other OS if you don't like FreeNAS.

Not to say that HP servers are not as reliable like the others.

[JunkStar]

Cant really help with any recommendations besides HP gear since i dont work with anything else. Komplett has some HP Servers but they are very limited in choice and very expensive compared to what i can get here in Denmark.

 

Senetic seems to have a Norwegian site at www.senetic.no and they sell HP Gear.

 

For example HP ML350 G9 - Not the fastest cpu but you dont really need it if its just for storage.

 

https://www.senetic.no/hpe/hpe_proliant_servers/proliant_ml_family/proliant_ml350_family_gen_9/

 

Edit: Dont buy a rack server if you dont have a rack to put it in honestly

[Erkel]

Just now, Niksa said:

Please don't buy HP. 

 

FreeNAS can work with any server (never said DIY) hardware, however HP is super proprietary and you will end up buying only their (super expensive) stuff. You can use any other OS if you don't like FreeNAS.

Not to say that HP servers are not as reliable like the others.

I would not run freenas on it,  

 

I am approaching it from a prospect of mission critical business environment, HP an't too bad.  What you would do in a personal context vs a business context are very different.

[VirtusGraphics]

21 minutes ago, JunkStar said:

Cant really help with any recommendations besides HP gear since i dont work with anything else. Komplett has some HP Servers but they are very limited in choice and very expensive compared to what i can get here in Denmark.

 

Senetic seems to have a Norwegian site at www.senetic.no and they sell HP Gear.

 

For example HP ML350 G9 - Not the fastest cpu but you dont really need it if its just for storage.

 

https://www.senetic.no/hpe/hpe_proliant_servers/proliant_ml_family/proliant_ml350_family_gen_9/

 

Edit: Dont buy a rack server if you dont have a rack to put it in honestly

We could buy a rack, but question is if we will expand in the future. Depends on how we can do the harddisk swapping for more space, swapping out the old ones.
Though it's not necessary, and some tower would honestly be preferred if the drive bay is as accessible as some of the rack ones. 

As a business we get back the 25% TAX thing later, and the reason why we want to use Komplett I believe is mainly due to the free shipping for shopping for a value over $116 (1000 NOK), and biggest of them all; 3 year warranty.

 

I believe 2 years warranty is normal required warranty by law for private persons, but it's like 3-6 months for business. Komplett has three for all. If the other sites/providers can offer that as well as good support, then I don't believe we'll have any discomfort buying from them instead.

36 minutes ago, Erkel said:

Buy a Dell or HP etc, I would stay away from the DIY idea as much as possible as its a business,  Sure you are going to cry about the price, and the DELL and HP sales reps will piss you around and try to rip you off at every opportunity by sneaking in high margin misc junk,  but that is just part of the games you have to play.

 

If you would like to buy from the company you mentioned, they do HP,  This the LFF version of one the servers they have on their site,

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/servers/proliant-servers/pip.specifications.hpe-proliant-dl380-gen9-e5-2620v4-2p-16gb-r-p840ar-12lff-800w-ps-server-s-buy.1009177640.html

 

12x 3.5 Drive bays, a decent raid card, CPU, RAM and dual power supplies.  Get them to configure it up with a 10GB card and get an HP 10Gb switch as part of the deal.

The last bastion of decent margin for the top tier server manufacturers is in the storage, so best to talk to some more experienced HP server people about using 3rd party drives, (ie WD GOLD drives) if the drive pricing they give you makes you want to vomit.

 

Post the quote here and we can advise further.

Are there any towers you would recommend for the our purpose?

 

Also want to know what type of specs it would need if we were, say, to have three computers open a 5GB file all at the same time?

In total we spend several days a year just waiting for not only items to open in Photoshop, but also pictures to load in Bridge, save to the server and so on. Hell, I even found out that with each and every simple brush stroke you apply on the image, it seems to use ethernet for reasons well beyond me. Not much, a few hundred kB to a MB or two. So it needs to be fast. Very fast, preferably to the point where the computer is the bottleneck.

 

We don't mind price if it's a good and reliable quality, although we don't want unnecessary expenses on junk and stuff we won't use, say for a powerful graphic card as we will only use it for storage,  accessing and modifying files a lot.

[JunkStar]

I think all HP servers are covered by a 3 year warranty directly from HP if im not mistaken. The server i linked is also rack mountable if you need that in the future and the disks are hot-swap and accessible from the front. Only thing is that is meant to stand on the floor like a normal computer.

[Guest]

Rather than buying a server from HPE or Dell or whomever, I'd suggest looking at getting a decent 10gig enabled QNAP NAS, a good UPS and a 10gig enabled switch. A TVS-671 or TVS-871 are a couple of options to look at.

 

The reason I'd suggest looking at a QNAP off the shelf unit over a server is simplicity - you don't need to worry about maintaining a Windows OS with a server or installing and configuring some 3rd party NAS OS. The QNAP ships ready to go out of the box and can do all of what you want to do. Simply put some decent drives in (7.2K NAS or higher rated drives) and let it go.

 

Alternatively the TS-x31XU are also worth looking at if you want something rack mounted and with redundant PSU's.

 

Keep in mind most QNAP's also support expander boxes - meaning you can simply attach the applicable expander if need be and boom, more storage.

 

As mentioned, also look at a 10gig enabled switch - these days they're quite cheap: all you need is one with a couple of SFP+ ports as you'll use one of those to talk to the NAS.Ubiquiti's EdgeSwitch's are pretty decent for a budget switch though Netgear and DLink do cheaper options yet again. You may also be able to find used Cisco/HP/Aruba/Dell availible on eBay however you'll run the risk of second hand equipment in a business environment plus they can be more difficult for the average user to setup if they don't have a GUI.  Put all of this on a decent quality UPS so that if you do lose power, it's not the end of the world.

 

For backing it up, due to your data size it's going to be difficult. You can look at replicating the content to Azure for a monthly ongoing fee OR look at a 2nd QNAP NAS - it doesn't have to be as fancy, just simply have enough backup capacity and you can replicate the data between the two. Ideally you'd keep the 2nd unit offsite however for the initial copy, you'll want them side by side purely due to the amount of data you want to copy.

 

This is by far the most simplistic and easiest to mange in terms of storage options. If you want more detail on anything - let me know. I've recently deployed almost identical setups for 3 different customers in similar circumstances.

 

 

[kasugatei]

52 minutes ago, Erkel said:

I would not run freenas on it,  

 

I am approaching it from a prospect of mission critical business environment, HP an't too bad.  What you would do in a personal context vs a business context are very different.

personal preference. FreeNAS is relatively easy and that's the reason I would suggest it. I would probably go with Centos personally but it is a bit harder to set it up.

 

My approach is from someone who's profession is system architect and who works with lots of different servers every day and that's why I would never suggest HP server to anyone. Too expensive, really picky with the (non HP rebranded expensive) hardware, not as reliable. So, once more, I was never talking about consumer stuff, only servers.

My first two choices for servers are Dell and Supermicro. Fujitsu (Japanese made ones) are made like tanks and had no issues with them so far but worked with only few of them so not enough experience to fully recommend them. 

 

@VirtusGraphics I believe that Dell Norway also has 3y warranty on their products so please take a look here:

http://www.dell.com/no/bedrifter/p/poweredge-r530/fs

 

Even the cheapest Dell RAID controller (you get it with the basic configuration included in price) works really nice and it is not picky about different brand drives connected to it and you can configure the array to RAID 5. Also, enterprise level SSDs are super expensive but you can put consumer grade ones and call it a day.

 

 

 

[VirtusGraphics]

1 hour ago, Windspeed36 said:

Rather than buying a server from HPE or Dell or whomever, I'd suggest looking at getting a decent 10gig enabled QNAP NAS, a good UPS and a 10gig enabled switch. A TVS-671 or TVS-871 are a couple of options to look at.

 

The reason I'd suggest looking at a QNAP off the shelf unit over a server is simplicity - you don't need to worry about maintaining a Windows OS with a server or installing and configuring some 3rd party NAS OS. The QNAP ships ready to go out of the box and can do all of what you want to do. Simply put some decent drives in (7.2K NAS or higher rated drives) and let it go.

 

Alternatively the TS-x31XU are also worth looking at if you want something rack mounted and with redundant PSU's.

 

Keep in mind most QNAP's also support expander boxes - meaning you can simply attach the applicable expander if need be and boom, more storage.

 

As mentioned, also look at a 10gig enabled switch - these days they're quite cheap: all you need is one with a couple of SFP+ ports as you'll use one of those to talk to the NAS.Ubiquiti's EdgeSwitch's are pretty decent for a budget switch though Netgear and DLink do cheaper options yet again. You may also be able to find used Cisco/HP/Aruba/Dell availible on eBay however you'll run the risk of second hand equipment in a business environment plus they can be more difficult for the average user to setup if they don't have a GUI.  Put all of this on a decent quality UPS so that if you do lose power, it's not the end of the world.

 

For backing it up, due to your data size it's going to be difficult. You can look at replicating the content to Azure for a monthly ongoing fee OR look at a 2nd QNAP NAS - it doesn't have to be as fancy, just simply have enough backup capacity and you can replicate the data between the two. Ideally you'd keep the 2nd unit offsite however for the initial copy, you'll want them side by side purely due to the amount of data you want to copy.

 

This is by far the most simplistic and easiest to mange in terms of storage options. If you want more detail on anything - let me know. I've recently deployed almost identical setups for 3 different customers in similar circumstances.

 

 

This sounds like a pretty good solution.

Could you please PM me with a little more information on backup solution, how it works? Furthermore, I have talked with the others and we need to get the device from

Komplett, as it turns out it's 5 year warranty (not 3 as i thought). They don't have that TVS-671 or TVS-871, but they have TVS-873.

I asked about ethernet and CPU expension, but they were not sure of anything like that.

 

I don't know anything about the SFP+ port thing, and would love to know more about why we'd want a better switch. Not entirely sure on what we have here today.

 

[tt2468]

Not sure why you think that reliability needs to cost that much. You don't even need a new server. I would recommend getting a dell r510 with an h700 and 12 bays up front. As you said, you will barely be using 100Mbps speeds, so you surely don't need 10Gb. The r510 is cheap on ebay, and they are great servers. For HDDs, you would want to use WD Red 6TB drives. Put them in a raid 5 and you will have enough storage for many years.

[SapphironZA]

Dont try and find the server first.  Find out what storage your workload needs.  Then go and find a server to put them in.

 

Spinning disks are always going to perform poorly for simultaneous users.

 

Either you need to look at SSD storage for what you are currently working on with an archive folder on mechanical drives. (Practically complex but technically simple)

 

or you need to have both HDD and SSD's in the server, with SSD's being used as a Cache for the HDD's (practically simple, but technically complex and less predictable)

 

if you are limited by what this supplier can offer, you might as well buy a NAS from them.  Like this one

https://www.komplett.no/product/909838/datautstyr/lagring/nettverkslagring-nas/qnap-tvs-873-16g-8-bay-nas#

 

Just make sure you get 2x M.2 SSD's as well for the SSD caching. Samsung 960 Pro (not evo) are considered the best ones.  they dont need to be large ones, 128GB would work great.

 

 Alternatively, go with a mix of HDD and SSD and change your workflow.