A Good Off The Shelf Server for a Small Business ?

[VascoM]

Hi Guys, I have a small business, where my team uses 12 computers ( I5 and  I7, 9th  and 10th gen)and I use  as a server where i keep the common the files and POS main program  a ( now) very old Dell R710 with 12 years  with 2 Xeon Processors X5670 at 2,93 GHz  and 48 Gb Ram . I´m thinking of evolving to something that does not spend so much electricity and less noisy and if possible...smaller. Anyone here with experience with servers that can give me a good Off the Shelf Dell or HP option under 2000 euros  ? I would greatly appreciate your help

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do you want rack mount? How much storage do you need?
 

You can probably get away with the basic rack servers form supermicro/dell/hpe/lenovo. The xeon E chips should be plenty here, and with 4 drives bays, you can likely get enough storage here.

 

 

[Dutch_Master]

Given your requirements, I'd suggest used workstations like 1st gen Threadripper. Or upgrade your current system with new-ish parts. Amazon has the TR1920 CPU at 270 USD with a suitable mainboard at 650-ish USD. Then 4 sticks of 32GB ECC RAM each would cost around 220USD via Aliexpress. That leaves you about 1000€ of your budget for a case, PSU and because the X399 platform doesn't offer IPMI or 10Gb network, a PiKVM solution and an additional 10Gb network card would solve those issues.

[VascoM]

Rackmount is not a must, I could do with a desktop form...

[VascoM]

38 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

Given your requirements, I'd suggest used workstations like 1st gen Threadripper. Or upgrade your current system with new-ish parts. Amazon has the TR1920 CPU at 270 USD with a suitable mainboard at 650-ish USD. Then 4 sticks of 32GB ECC RAM each would cost around 220USD via Aliexpress. That leaves you about 1000€ of your budget for a case, PSU and because the X399 platform doesn't offer IPMI or 10Gb network, a PiKVM solution and an additional 10Gb network card would solve those issues.

I´m in for something new, but 2k is really the top dollar I want to pay. Its essential in my business computer acess, but id rather spend my money in other kind of material that will do the job. We dont have editing, its a  health clinic , is mostly saving not very heavy image files and have a compreensive file of all our customers.

[ToboRobot]

It's hard to recommend anything without knowing more about your workload.

Do you need a NAS to share files?  How much compute does your POS require?

[VascoM]

1 minute ago, ToboRobot said:

It's hard to recommend anything without knowing more about your workload.

Do you need a NAS to share files?  How much compute does your POS require?

Actually, we only share images through the network with no more than 50 mb each , and the POS works  with the minimum of :

Mínimum hardware

Dual Core

Ram 4 Gbyte

hard drive  SATA 7200 RPM

Software

Windows XP Professional ou Windows Vista Windows 7 (no caso de PHC Corporate)

Windows 2003 Server ou Windows 2008 Server

Microsoft SQL Server

network

speed  100 Mbits

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, VascoM said:

Rackmount is not a must, I could do with a desktop form...

How much storage do you need?

 

1 minute ago, VascoM said:

Actually, we only share images through the network with no more than 50 mb each , and the POS works  with the minimum of :

Mínimum hardware

Dual Core

Ram 4 Gbyte

hard drive  SATA 7200 RPM

Software

Windows XP Professional ou Windows Vista Windows 7 (no caso de PHC Corporate)

Windows 2003 Server ou Windows 2008 Server

Microsoft SQL Server

network

speed  100 Mbits

How much total storage are you using now? How much CPU + RAM is your current server have used?

 

I'd probably get something like a dell r250 here. Something like this from supermicro is pretty simmilar too. https://store.supermicro.com/us_en/mainstream-server-1u-sys-5019c-m.html

 

Also remember WIndows server is like $500 or more so add that do you budget if you need it.

[ToboRobot]

26 minutes ago, VascoM said:

Actually, we only share images through the network with no more than 50 mb each , and the POS works  with the minimum of :

Mínimum hardware

Dual Core

Ram 4 Gbyte

hard drive  SATA 7200 RPM

Software

Windows XP Professional ou Windows Vista Windows 7 (no caso de PHC Corporate)

Windows 2003 Server ou Windows 2008 Server

Microsoft SQL Server

network

speed  100 Mbits

Windows 2008 Server stopped having support in 2020. 

Does it run on Windows 10/11? 

Those specs are very basic, you could run it on a small and cheap desktop.