New Server for Work

[PenguinMaster]

I have recently been assigned the task of updating my uncles business' computers and storage server. Their current computers are from 2013 and the server is from 2011 and this year they finally decided that the crashes made it so they couldn't work efficiently anymore. They have about 7 or 8 employees working there.

 

For the new desktops I picked Dell OptiPlex 3080 Micros. I was between the OptiPlex 3080 Small Form Factor and the Dell OptiPlex 3080 Micro but picked the Micro because it was $10 cheaper per system and we don't need DVD drives so I figure why waste the extra space. Are these systems a nightmare to work on and should I pick the OptiPlex 3080 Small Form Factor instead, or will the Micro be ok? 

 

The new desktop specs are: i5, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD...

 

For the server I picked a PowerEdge T340 Tower Server. Their last server was a T310 with about 4TB of storage and the Xeon processor from that year. I don't know what the exact specs are because I don't have access to the machine and they couldn't find the service tag. I am equipping their new server with 8TB (2x 4TB 7200rpm drives) of storage and I also wanted to equip it with 2 500GB SSD's as cache. I believe they will be using windows server because they use a program called quick books which will only run on windows server or on specific versions of linux. Now I know they could use VM's but I'm really not sure what to do. They have an IT guy and all I need to do is equip the server for him and the IT guy will take care of setting it up for me. The only thing is Dell has like 1,000 different options for the PowerEdge T340 and so I'm not sure if I should get the TPM module, do I need more threads or more cores or both?, is 32GB of RAM enough?, should I get the RAID card or the HBA adapter, do I need RAID, if so which version (0, 1, 5....), do I need to upgrade the iDRAC or will the basic one do, what is Microsoft SQL Server?, should i add any of the "keep your drive" or warranties on?

 

I know some may be asking "Why Dell", and the reason is my uncle only wants Dell and I don't want to be their 24/7 tech support so we're going pre-built. Not to mention the lack of accessible parts.

 

Any help is appreciated.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, PenguinMaster said:

Are these systems a nightmare to work on and should I pick the OptiPlex 3080 Small Form Factor instead, or will the Micro be ok? 

There pretty easy to work on, but limitied if you want things like a add in card. Micros are noramlly fine here. 

 

Id be tempted to get a laptop for the users and a dock though

 

2 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Now I know they could use VM's but I'm really not sure what to do.

You raelly want vms here. Id use hyper-v in windows. Make everything nicer to manager.

 

3 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

I am equipping their new server with 8TB (2x 4TB 7200rpm drives) of storage and I also wanted to equip it with 2 500GB SSD's as cache

Id use the ssds for vms, and the hdds for mass storage.

 

3 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

e if I should get the TPM module,

You normally don't need it unless your using bitlocker. You normally know if your need it

 

6 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

do I need more threads or more cores or both?,

What vms are you going to run? Id probalby do 4/8 or 6/6 at least.

 

7 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

do I need more threads or more cores or both?, is 32GB of RAM enough?, should I get the RAID card or the HBA adapter, do I need RAID, if so which version (0, 1, 5....), do I need to upgrade the iDRAC or will the basic one do, what is Microsoft SQL Server?, should i add any of the "keep your drive" or warranties on?

Why not get the IT guy to pick this if he is setting it up?

 

Probalby get the raid card.

 

idrac isn't needed noramlly if you can get onsite easily. But really nice for offsite work.

[AndreiArgeanu]

The 3080 micro aren't that difficult to work on but expansion is really limited,  but also are slower than their SFF counterparts since they run low power(T) cpu's e.g. i3 10100T which are clocked quite a bit lower, for example under an all core load the i3 10100 clocks at 4100mhz while the T variant clocks at 3500mhz. Might be something worth considering.

[PenguinMaster]

@Electronics Wizardy

 

Ok sounds good for the desktops - They don't move their computers so no need for laptops.

 

I honestly don't know much about their current server setup other than that their using windows server, its a Dell T310 and that it has a Xeon Processor. I will be talking with their IT guy tomorrow and I believe the reason I am spec'ing these out is because the IT guy charges for every call he gets and he's expensive. So only having to use him for the actual setup of the serer is what he wants to do. Otherwise I honestly have no idea.

[PenguinMaster]

3 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

but also are slower than their SFF counterparts

Good point. I am definitely going the path of the 3080's instead.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, PenguinMaster said:

Good point. I am definitely going the path of the 3080's instead.

Performance is basically the same, don't pick the bigger one for performance. Id get the micro here if you don't need the extra features.

 

3 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

@Electronics Wizardy

 

Ok sounds good for the desktops - They don't move their computers so no need for laptops.

 

I honestly don't know much about their current server setup other than that their using windows server, its a Dell T310 and that it has a Xeon Processor. I will be talking with their IT guy tomorrow and I believe the reason I am spec'ing these out is because the IT guy charges for every call he gets and he's expensive. So only having to use him for the actual setup of the serer is what he wants to do. Otherwise I honestly have no idea.

Yea seems like a good idea, But really push him to move to vms, no reason not to now.

[AndreiArgeanu]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Performance is basically the same, don't pick the bigger one for performance. Id get the micro here if you don't need the extra features.

How is performance the same, you can't just say the 700mhz difference in clock speed in both single core and all core load is negligible.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, AndreiArgeanu said:

How is performance the same, you can't just say the 700mhz difference in clock speed in both single core and all core load is negligible.

Turbo boost means those base clocks won't really matter here. 

 

And for those offices uses, the cpu speed won't matter. I have some users still running first gen i3s and the performance is fine. People won't notice the difference.

[AndreiArgeanu]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Turbo boost means those base clocks won't really matter here. 

I wasn't talking about base clocks, I was talking about turbo frequencies. Also there was no mention of office use, so I assumed the performance was important since he specced out i5 models. If that's the case then the i3 10100T is more than enough.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I wasn't talking about base clocks, I was talking about turbo frequencies. Also there was no mention of office use, so I assumed the performance was important since he specced out i5 models. If that's the case then the i3 10100T is more than enough.

Normally the i5 models aren't much more so why not. 

 

Yea I see the boost clocks are a bit higher on the non t, still probalby won't matter here. Get what ever size works better in the office. If you got space, the bigger ones are easier to work on and expand. Otherwise a i3 is plenty. I got some with i3 10100s working at my office just fine.

[PenguinMaster]

--Message Deleted--

 

[PenguinMaster]

@Electronics Wizardy @AndreiArgeanu

 

Do you guys have any recommendations for a 10-gig SFP+ switch with gigabit ethernet ports? Would like to be under 2 grand. Needs at least 16 gigabit ports.

[Jarsky]

Quick question....do they even need to run their own on-premise server? Have they looked at the TaaS pricing for Quickbooks? Pretty sure they offer a subscription cloud solution, which saves $$ on hardware and the server support. And there are plenty of cloud storage solutions as well. If they use Email and Microsoft suites, then theres Microsoft 365 which includes cloud storage, otherwise Dropbox, Google Drive, iDrive, pCloud, etc...

[PenguinMaster]

14 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Quick question....do they even need to run their own on-premise server? Have they looked at the TaaS pricing for Quickbooks? Pretty sure they offer a subscription cloud solution, which saves $$ on hardware and the server support. And there are plenty of cloud storage solutions as well. If they use Email and Microsoft suites, then theres Microsoft 365 which includes cloud storage, otherwise Dropbox, Google Drive, iDrive, pCloud, etc...

They use quickbooks but like to host it locally only.

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, PenguinMaster said:

@Electronics Wizardy @AndreiArgeanu

 

Do you guys have any recommendations for a 10-gig SFP+ switch with gigabit ethernet ports? Would like to be under 2 grand. Needs at least 16 gigabit ports.

Do you even need sfp+ ports? 1gbe is probably fine here. Do you need poe.

 

If you want cheap go netgear, they work fine. Otherwise these are tons of models, from like aruba, dell, and others.

[Jarsky]

8 hours ago, PenguinMaster said:

They use quickbooks but like to host it locally only.

Yeah I understand they use QuickBooks which is why I mentioned that Intuit offers subscription cloud solutions for it, which can be cheaper than buying a server and paying for a maintenance contract, IT support, server backups, etc...

 

Also if you're using SQL Server you shouldn't need any form of NVMe cache. SQL Server can utilize memory for OLTP. 

 

As for 10gbE, I can't see any reason to be going to that expense? especially given you're using local storage on the server.

[Aragorn-]

I think you need to specify what actual work is being done here.

 

You've picked fairly low end desktop PC's suggesting basic Office type work, but then you've speced a midrange T340, and are asking about 10gbe?

 

 

[Aragorn-]

I should also point out, having been in that "IT Guys" shoes before, you really should involve him in the process.

 

Theers nothing more annoying than turning upto a job where someone has specced a load of kit that really isnt suitable, and being expected to make it all work. Or corners are being cut due to "not enough budget" when your looking at totally overspecced kit that they simply didnt need.

[PenguinMaster]

They are doing pretty basic office work, but the IT guy insisted we get the Dell PowerEdge T440 with the 12 core, 48 thread processor with 64GB of RAM. I spec'd out exactly what he wanted and he asked for 10-gig SFP+.

 

They host their own quickbooks server, maybe their own website also.

 

@Aragorn-

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 hours ago, PenguinMaster said:

They are doing pretty basic office work, but the IT guy insisted we get the Dell PowerEdge T440 with the 12 core, 48 thread processor with 64GB of RAM. I spec'd out exactly what he wanted and he asked for 10-gig SFP+.

 

They host their own quickbooks server, maybe their own website also.

 

@Aragorn-

Yea you probably don't need 10gbe here.

 

But why are you picking parts, let the IT guy do that. If you don't like the options he gives you look for other quotes.

 

Id really push for cloud stuff though.

[Aragorn-]

Certainly seems overkill. I've got an office full of engineers working on 3D CAD, and bonded 2x1GbE (copper) between the main fileserver and core switch is fine.

[PenguinMaster]

@Electronics Wizardy @Aragorn- @Jarsky @AndreiArgeanu

 

Update: We are not going with a pre-built server. Instead, I am custom building a computer that we can use as a server. Now I also have more of an idea what it will be used for.

 

In addition to hosting their QuickBooks files, this will also be a NAS for all their BOL and shipment information, it will hold their Inventory information, and it will also be used as storage for all the computers in the offices Documents.

 

I was thinking this for the specs:

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 2.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($164.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler  ($44.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING Z590-PLUS ATX LGA1200 Motherboard  ($239.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 600 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($89.00 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GA 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($82.98 @ Newegg) 
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit  ($149.99 @ Newegg) 
Wired Network Adapter: Intel EXPI9404PTL PCIe x4 1000 Mbit/s Network Adapter  ($30.00) 
 

We are adding in a RAID card also, any recommendations? Will this hardware be capable enough? Or do I need to change anything?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Update: We are not going with a pre-built server. Instead, I am custom building a computer that we can use as a server. Now I also have more of an idea what it will be used for.

 

Id really avoid doing so as support will be limited

 

2 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

n addition to hosting their QuickBooks files, this will also be a NAS for all their BOL and shipment information, it will hold their Inventory information, and it will also be used as storage for all the computers in the offices Documents.

 

How much storage do you need?

 

2 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler  ($44.90 @ Amazon) 

stock cooler is fine here

 

3 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 

Id probably go 2x 4tb ssds here. Might as well go pcie if pricing is simmilar

 

3 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit  ($149.99 @ Newegg) 

Your gonna want a hypervisor for the os here, and windows server. Are the systems in a domain?

 

3 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Wired Network Adapter: Intel EXPI9404PTL PCIe x4 1000 Mbit/s Network Adapter  ($30.00) 
 

Included nic is fine in the board normlly, why add that nic?

 

4 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

We are adding in a RAID card also, any recommendations? Will this hardware be capable enough? Or do I need to change anything?

What raid levels do you need?

 

Id probably go software raid here.

 

 

Your gonna want a seperate boot drive.

 

Id really get a basic tower server like a tell t340 here. Much better support and hardware. Then get a boss card for boot, and use something like hyper-v server or proxmox on the hardware, and run vms for different tasks.

 

 

[PenguinMaster]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id really avoid doing so as support will be limited

We are comfortable without the support as we have an IT guy.

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much storage do you need?

At minimum 4TB of usable space

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

stock cooler is fine here

Ok sounds good

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id probably go 2x 4tb ssds here. Might as well go pcie if pricing is simmilar

Our IT guy wanted to use a RAID card so we had to go with SATA SSDs instead of NVMe or PCIe.

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your gonna want a hypervisor for the os here, and windows server

I don't think we are running any VMs. Why windows server? I doubt we'd use the features and its very expensive.

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Are the systems in a domain?

No

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Included nic is fine in the board normlly, why add that nic?

I was thinking about using trunking to set the 4 ports as one link to our switch so we'd have 4 gig instead of 1

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What raid levels do you need?

I think our IT guy wants RAID 1 but we have a backup server (the old one) so I don't think we need RAID 1 I think RAID 0 would be better in our case.

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id probably go software raid here.

I heard Windows Storage Spaces is really bad sometimes?

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your gonna want a seperate boot drive.

That's what I was thinking also

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id really get a basic tower server like a tell t340 here. Much better support and hardware. Then get a boss card for boot, and use something like hyper-v server or proxmox on the hardware, and run vms for different tasks.

I will talk to our IT guy about it but I don't know why we don't use VMs. We only use Windows Server at the moment (not on a VM) and we have 2 network shares. I guess he just created a folder and shared it with the network?

 

Any specific specs you'd recommend for the Dell T340? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

We are comfortable without the support as we have an IT guy.

Let him spec the build then. Why are you specing the system?

 

8 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

I don't think we are running any VMs. Why windows server? I doubt we'd use the features and its very expensive.

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id really run vms here. No reason not to. Make everything nicer and backups much easier.

 

9 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

I think our IT guy wants RAID 1 but we have a backup server (the old one) so I don't think we need RAID 1 I think RAID 0 would be better in our case.

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well raid 1 with 4 drives doesn't make sense. 

 

Raid and backups do different goals, using both makes sense.

 

9 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

I heard Windows Storage Spaces is really bad sometimes?

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Not if you set it up right. You can also use other raid systems like zfs on linux in proxmox and run windows vm on top of it

 

10 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

That's what I was thinking also

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id add one, probably dual 250gb ssds, or sdcards if the hypervisor supports it

 

10 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

will talk to our IT guy about it but I don't know why we don't use VMs. We only use Windows Server at the moment (not on a VM) and we have 2 network shares. I guess he just created a folder and shared it with the network?

 

Do you manage the workstations centerally here? Id probalby setup a domain here if it was me, but depends on your needs. Makes a lot of things easier in the windows world. Or use Azure ad, its free too.

 

12 minutes ago, PenguinMaster said:

Any specific specs you'd recommend for the Dell T340? 

Let the IT guy decide, but 32gb of ram, 4c/8t or 6c/6t cpu, 250gb boss boot card, a few hdds for storage, a few ssds for vms/databases

 

 

 

Really don't build your own system here, let the IT guy do it, hes the one setting it up. IDK why your configuring it here. 

 

Id probably go hdds for storage here, you won't need the speed, save the money.

 

Id really push for cloud here, you can pretty easily get away with no onsite server if you want here, and probably gonna be simmilar cost and more reliable.