Server for small business.

[X1XNobleX1X]

Hello Forums, 

I'm looking to purchasing new server components for a raid 5 configuration using Windows server 2012 . 

Currently we have a Buffalo Linkstation Quad, which isn't doing the job and is very slow. 

 

The budget is $1000-3000 AUD 

As I said before, it will be in a raid 5 configuration and  used for a small business, 8-10 computers all accessing this server, all may be running CAD at the same time.(May require link aggregation)  

 

The server MUST be able to hit the Gigabit limit of 112MB/S (This obviously depends on the size of the file of course) on each computer accessing the server. 

 

Would anyone be able to suggest some parts?

Also, how would I go about being able to access the files outside of the network?

 

Thank you guys in advance!

 

 

[Whaler_99]

You are asking a lot for that bduget. First off, any server running 2012 will never hit the GB limit. Why? The overhead of bloody windows. Second, your RAID will also place a penalty on writing to the disks.You would need a VERY high end raid controller to maximize the throughput, hence, by by budget.

 

Are you looking for a brand name or some your build yourself? Also, for max throughput, you will need SAS or even SAS2 drives. those ain't cheap. What size of RAID array are you needing?

 

To maximize throughput you will be wanting your OS install on a separate array from your storage. Now you look at two raid arrays. (to properly protect everything) As a trade off I would suggest a RAID10 array...

Need 4 disks to start, but the performance is much better then RAID5.

[X1XNobleX1X]

You are asking a lot for that bduget. First off, any server running 2012 will never hit the GB limit. Why? The overhead of bloody windows. Second, your RAID will also place a penalty on writing to the disks.You would need a VERY high end raid controller to maximize the throughput, hence, by by budget.

 

Are you looking for a brand name or some your build yourself? Also, for max throughput, you will need SAS or even SAS2 drives. those ain't cheap. What size of RAID array are you needing?

 

To maximize throughput you will be wanting your OS install on a separate array from your storage. Now you look at two raid arrays. (to properly protect everything) As a trade off I would suggest a RAID10 array...

Need 4 disks to start, but the performance is much better then RAID5.

Hello Whaler_99,

Thank you for your answer.

 

I understand what you're saying. 

The protection of the information on the drives is the number one priority hence,  raid 10 or even raid 6. 

The drives I would be using is WD RED Drives as I currently have two 2 X 2TB WD Reds, so SAS is out of the question. 

 

 

If you were to build a server for my situation what parts would you recommend? Say there is no budget, if the going to last 10 years minimum, it won't matter how much it will cost. 

 

Congratulations on 4000 posts by the way. 

[Whaler_99]

I got there eventually...

 

OK, first off, let's quantify this... I have used WD RED extensively... as well as SE, RE and SAS drives in my work. 

 

If you building a system with red drives, no matter the hardware, it is a glorified NAS. Why do I say that? RED drives have some variable speed controller for "performance" but will never spin higher then 5900 RPM. For a server, that simply isn't acceptable. For a NAS though it is fine. 

 

If I "had" to go SATA for storage, I would definitely go RE drives. Remember also with SATA, of you have more than one person accessing the array at the same time, performance can also tank.

 

If this is a "storage" server, CPU and ram requirements are minimal. You basically need it run the OS. Spend money on a good controller. I would definitely go SAS drives. Best case, RAID1 array for OS, RAID10 array for storage.

 

And nothing will last ten years.

 

Another option, I have been working a lot with QNAP systems lately and i have to say, they do offer some really good performance. Now, again, this is software based RAID, but still pretty good. I have seen a TS-469 with 4 x SE drives handling 14 surveillance camera's all writing to it at the same time... A NAS yes, but really good ones... plus you get a lot of extra software options with these...

[alpenwasser]

If you building a system with red drives, no matter the hardware, it is a glorified NAS. Why do I say that? RED drives have some variable speed controller for "performance" but will never spin higher then 5900 RPM. For a server, that simply isn't acceptable. For a NAS though it is fine.

Just thought I'd mention this: Apparently the rotational speed on the drives

using Intellipower is fixed for each drive, not variable, though each drive

line can have a different (fixed) rpm under the same marketing mantle.

SilentPCreview did some tests on that, here's the basic explanation:

 

It's quite simple, really. Most of a drive's power is consumed by the motor that spins the disk inside the drive. Reduce the speed of the disk, and you reduce the amount of power required. However, Western Digital doesn't want to say that they're selling 5,400 RPM drives — those became second class in the desktop market years ago. Instead, they rate the drive's speed as "IntelliPower" and take pains to emphasize that there are other factors that affect performance.

Western Digital has caught a lot of flak for withholding the rotation speed of the Green Power, especially when the product was first launched and the marketing material listed the rotation speed as 5,400-7,200 RPM. This led some to speculate that the rotation speed changed dynamically during use — which would have been an impressive engineering feat had it been true. The reality is revealed by a sentence that Western Digital added to the description of IntelliPower: "For each GreenPower™ drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM." In other words, Western Digital reserves the right to release both 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM drives under the Green Power name — without telling you which are which.

We were able to confirm that our 750 GB Green Power had a spindle speed of 5,400 RPM by analyzing its sound spectrum. Why sound? Sound is vibration; the pitch of the sound corresponds to the frequency of the vibration. Hard drives vibrate at the speed of their motor, so they produce a noise at the same frequency as their rotation speed. Our sample had a sharp spike at exactly 90 Hz (cycles per second). Multiplying that number by 60 (to get cycles per minute) yielded a measured rotation speed of 5,400 RPM.

Source, it's a WD Green article, but they also did the same test with

the WD Red in this article and also came to 5,400 rpm.