server Small Business Server

[Jil Patel]

Hello Everyone,

 I have a small Business Running in India, I am looking to build a new server, where I need to deploy around 10-15 RDS Clients running an accounting software whose each open instance takes up quite a bit of ram and processing power (about 500 MB of ram each instance and about 5-10% CPU Resources), Each Client Will be opening about 2-3 instances of this Software, the Data stored in the server would not be more than 4-6 TB at max and most of the data would be the accounting software.
I am in need to build a server with redundant storage , ECC memory , and possibly Rackmount. Also Please Suggest if Dual Processors can be Beneficial. My budget is around 3000$.

 

 

Current Server Specifications :

Processor : Intel Xeon E3 1225 V5 (3.3 GHZ)

Ram         : 8 GB DDR3

OS           : Windows 7 Pro

 

My suggestions for the New Server :

Processor : Intel Xeon E5 2630 V4

Ram         : 64 GB DDR4 ECC

OS           : Windows Server 2016

 

Please Help ! and Correct me if I am wrong for my new server suggestions.

 

Thank you very much.

[AnirbanG007]

47 minutes ago, Jil Patel said:

Hello Everyone,

 I have a small Business Running in India, I am looking to build a new server, where I need to deploy around 10-15 RDS Clients running an accounting software whose each open instance takes up quite a bit of ram and processing power (about 500 MB of ram each instance and about 5-10% CPU Resources), Each Client Will be opening about 2-3 instances of this Software, the Data stored in the server would not be more than 4-6 TB at max and most of the data would be the accounting software.
I am in need to build a server with redundant storage , ECC memory , and possibly Rackmount. Also Please Suggest if Dual Processors can be Beneficial. My budget is around 3000$.

 

 

Current Server Specifications :

Processor : Intel Xeon E3 1225 V5 (3.3 GHZ)

Ram         : 8 GB DDR3

OS           : Windows 7 Pro

 

My suggestions for the New Server :

Processor : Intel Xeon E5 2630 V4

Ram         : 64 GB DDR4 ECC

OS           : Windows Server 2016

 

Please Help ! and Correct me if I am wrong for my new server suggestions.

 

Thank you very much.

I don't have a ton of idea about Indian pricing at the server level, but what I can say is that, you could try going for an equivalent Threadripper Processor or Epyc if you need more PCIE lanes (probably better to use Epyc), those are much cheaper and have very good performance. Although Linus had some trouble with running VM's on Threadripper in the past, but Intel does play fine with VM's.

 

https://hwp.media/articles/threadripper_vs_epyc_comparing_three_amd_32_core_processors_in_server_applications/#:~:text=The second generation ThreadRipper processors,has an 8-channel controller.&text=Thus%2C each processor core got,hypervisor%2C but also increased performance.

[Dutch_Master]

+1 on the AMD EPYC platform. Having said that, it's probably worth investigating using a 2nd hand (used) server, as these tend to be fairly cheap. One youtuber reported he won an auction with a bid on 1 GBP (plus shipping) on a partially gutted (but not very thorough) server chassis, which required not a whole lot of money to get up & running again. He also got one, in better shape, for just 15 GBP. Another YT channel (Craft Computing) has several videos on his server purchases that too wouldn't require breaking the bank.

 

Heck, if you play your cards right, you may get a nice pallet of these things into India and sell the ones you don't need for a tidy profit

[NelizMastr]

If you're looking for Remote Desktop clients, you'll need to consider licensing as well.

 

You'll need a regular Windows Server 2016 CAL for every user that will access the server, 

that includes all clients just reading files off a drive. 

You'll also need RDS CALs for every user or device that connects to the RDS server you'll need to setup.

 

With a single Windows Server 2016 license, I'd go the ESXi route for the hypervisor,

then create one VM as a domain controller/fileserver and another as the RDS server.

 

The domain controller should be fine with 8GB RAM. The rest can go to the RDS server.

 

15 clients on one RDS machine should be possible with 32GB of RAM for the RDS. 

Keep some in reserve on the host if it needs to be expanded at some point. 

 

Storage wise, run the operating system disks off SSD, use 10K SAS drives or even 7.2K for regular

data access. RAID10 is recommended for the SSDs, data drives should be okay with a RAID5 or 6. 

 

This might be tricky with your budget, though. Perhaps a used server would be best. 

An HPE DL380 Gen8 is cheap to get parts for and support is generally okay, but it's getting old.

If you can find a DL380 Gen9 that'd be better. If rack mount is not a requirement per se,

then the ML350 Gen9 is also a good option. They can be cheaper depending on the market. 

64GB RAM and a single CPU should be good enough (preferably a faster base clock CPU and not the typical 2620v3). 

[Jil Patel]

On 2/16/2021 at 6:13 PM, NelizMastr said:

If you're looking for Remote Desktop clients, you'll need to consider licensing as well.

 

You'll need a regular Windows Server 2016 CAL for every user that will access the server, 

that includes all clients just reading files off a drive. 

You'll also need RDS CALs for every user or device that connects to the RDS server you'll need to setup.

 

With a single Windows Server 2016 license, I'd go the ESXi route for the hypervisor,

then create one VM as a domain controller/fileserver and another as the RDS server.

 

The domain controller should be fine with 8GB RAM. The rest can go to the RDS server.

 

15 clients on one RDS machine should be possible with 32GB of RAM for the RDS. 

Keep some in reserve on the host if it needs to be expanded at some point. 

 

Storage wise, run the operating system disks off SSD, use 10K SAS drives or even 7.2K for regular

data access. RAID10 is recommended for the SSDs, data drives should be okay with a RAID5 or 6. 

 

This might be tricky with your budget, though. Perhaps a used server would be best. 

An HPE DL380 Gen8 is cheap to get parts for and support is generally okay, but it's getting old.

If you can find a DL380 Gen9 that'd be better. If rack mount is not a requirement per se,

then the ML350 Gen9 is also a good option. They can be cheaper depending on the market. 

64GB RAM and a single CPU should be good enough (preferably a faster base clock CPU and not the typical 2620v3). 

Thank you for your reply. Helped me a lot.

[Jil Patel]

On 2/15/2021 at 3:05 PM, AnirbanG007 said:

I don't have a ton of idea about Indian pricing at the server level, but what I can say is that, you could try going for an equivalent Threadripper Processor or Epyc if you need more PCIE lanes (probably better to use Epyc), those are much cheaper and have very good performance. Although Linus had some trouble with running VM's on Threadripper in the past, but Intel does play fine with VM's.

 

https://hwp.media/articles/threadripper_vs_epyc_comparing_three_amd_32_core_processors_in_server_applications/#:~:text=The second generation ThreadRipper processors,has an 8-channel controller.&text=Thus%2C each processor core got,hypervisor%2C but also increased performance.

Thank you for your answer ,