New Tower vs Old Rack Server

[ThomasDowns]

Hello,

 

Please forgive me if this has been asked plenty of times before, I've been searching for an answer but I am getting mixed results.

 

I am looking to purchase a server for business use, this will store company documents alongside running applications such as an internal web server. Id like this server to be able to handle multiple applications and be expandable as I require more storage or software to run.

 

I was looking at a new tower server from Lenovo however I found a good site offering second hand rack servers for fairly good prices. I was looking at the following kind of specs:

 

TS140 ThinkServer - This comes with 4GB of ECC Memory and a Xeon E3-1226 v3 @ 3.3 Ghz alongside a standard 1TB WD Red drive. This is currently £240 after a Lenovo rebate.

 

However I have found some dell PowerEdge rack servers. These are rough specs:

 

Dual Xeon X5450 @ 3 Ghz with 16Gb DDR2 RAM. These servers have roughly the same expand-ability to around 6 drives each. These come in second hand at around £150

 

My question being, which would be the best solution in terms of performance? I know the newer xeon will perform better in single applications but would the Dual Xeons out perform when multiple applications are running?

 

Id ideally like this server to run for 1-2 years at which point I would likely invest in a higher end server.

 

Any ideas?

[scottyseng]

Hello,

 

Please forgive me if this has been asked plenty of times before, I've been searching for an answer but I am getting mixed results.

 

I am looking to purchase a server for business use, this will store company documents alongside running applications such as an internal web server. Id like this server to be able to handle multiple applications and be expandable as I require more storage or software to run.

 

I was looking at a new tower server from Lenovo however I found a good site offering second hand rack servers for fairly good prices. I was looking at the following kind of specs:

 

TS140 ThinkServer - This comes with 4GB of ECC Memory and a Xeon E3-1226 v3 @ 3.3 Ghz alongside a standard 1TB WD Red drive. This is currently £240 after a Lenovo rebate.

 

However I have found some dell PowerEdge rack servers. These are rough specs:

 

Dual Xeon X5450 @ 3 Ghz with 16Gb DDR2 RAM. These servers have roughly the same expand-ability to around 6 drives each. These come in second hand at around £150

 

My question being, which would be the best solution in terms of performance? I know the newer xeon will perform better in single applications but would the Dual Xeons out perform when multiple applications are running?

 

Id ideally like this server to run for 1-2 years at which point I would likely invest in a higher end server.

 

Any ideas?

 

The Dual Xeon X5450 would win, without a doubt. These Xeons will easily power you for a while. I would say to go for the X5450s if you need performance.

 

I have a Xeon E5-2695V3 in my nas (14 core, 28 thread, 2.2GHz / 2.5GHz turbo). It loses to my 2500K (4.6GHz overclock) in single threaded programs, but in my programs that can use all threads, it destroys my 2500K. Rendering is about 4x faster than the 2500K. However, it costs way more than your X5450s there. The power difference and compute performance doesn't warrant the extra cost over the used X5450s. DDR2 is not going to be a bottleneck either.

 

It would be better price wise too, since you already plan to invest in a better server in the future, so rather than spending a lot on what is new now, a preowned would keep you going for a while as you save up for the DDR4 / Haswell (I guess it would be skylake by then) future server.

[ThomasDowns]

Thank you scottyseng,

 

The only concern I have with these servers running the x5450's is the hard drive compatability. Can I throw 2-4TB Red drives into these? The specifications seem to say 3.5" 7200 RPM drives only go up to 1TB, is this just because of the age and there were very few drives bigger than 1TB or is there an actual cap on these older servers.

[scottyseng]

Thank you scottyseng,

 

The only concern I have with these servers running the x5450's is the hard drive compatability. Can I throw 2-4TB Red drives into these? The specifications seem to say 3.5" 7200 RPM drives only go up to 1TB, is this just because of the age and there were very few drives bigger than 1TB or is there an actual cap on these older servers.

 

There should not be a cap at all. I think it was because back then, hard drives weren't so large back then. The only cap you would ever run into is if you accidently put the drives in MBR (limit to 2TB) instead of GPT (If this is running Windows of course). 2-4TB Reds should work without issue.

[ThomasDowns]

I was thinking of running Linux however I do have a spare license for windows server 2008 or 2012, not sure which, I've got it through my dreamspark account.

 

Do you advise to run windows on a machine like this?

[scottyseng]

I was thinking of running Linux however I do have a spare license for windows server 2008 or 2012, not sure which, I've got it through my dreamspark account.

 

Do you advise to run windows on a machine like this?

 

That really depends on what you plan to do with the server. What programs do you run on it? Is this a storage server? How much do you know about Linux?

 

You should not be using your Dreamspark Windows Server keys for business/commercial use, it's against the agreements, but I won't stop you if you choose to do so.  

 

I would say if you know Windows best, Windows Server would be good for you. You can set up a website server on it if you wish and it's easier to set up. I have Windows Server 2012 R2 myself from Dreamspark, but I'm just using it as a home NAS for personal use and college work.

[ThomasDowns]

If its against dream spark terms then I wont use it, just knew I had a key somewhere. 

 

It will be a storage and application server running mainly a web server but will also run other applications in the future. We may also use this for small things, perhaps to run a mumble server on the side however depends on my upload handling the data. I have a 160/12 connection.

[scottyseng]

If its against dream spark terms then I wont use it, just knew I had a key somewhere. 

 

It will be a storage and application server running mainly a web server but will also run other applications in the future. We may also use this for small things, perhaps to run a mumble server on the side however depends on my upload handling the data. I have a 160/12 connection.

 

Well, I'm on the windows side of things, so I don't know how easy / hard it is to set that up in Linux. I would imagine Linux being able to do the tasks you need though. That is one crazy fast connection though.

[ThomasDowns]

I wish the upload was higher than 12 but the download is super fast for the price it costs. I've enquired about a leased line and 160/12 comes with our phone and tv packages for around £95 a month. The leased line for 200/200 came in at £595 a month or I can get a 1000/1000 line for £16000 a year. Thats around $900 and $25000 respectively. 

[ThomasDowns]

The Dual Xeon X5450 would win, without a doubt. These Xeons will easily power you for a while. I would say to go for the X5450s if you need performance.

 

I have a Xeon E5-2695V3 in my nas (14 core, 28 thread, 2.2GHz / 2.5GHz turbo). It loses to my 2500K (4.6GHz overclock) in single threaded programs, but in my programs that can use all threads, it destroys my 2500K. Rendering is about 4x faster than the 2500K. However, it costs way more than your X5450s there. The power difference and compute performance doesn't warrant the extra cost over the used X5450s. DDR2 is not going to be a bottleneck either.

 

It would be better price wise too, since you already plan to invest in a better server in the future, so rather than spending a lot on what is new now, a preowned would keep you going for a while as you save up for the DDR4 / Haswell (I guess it would be skylake by then) future server.

Just remembered something about the x5450's, they consume almost 50% more power than the E5450's, would the energy savings be enough to warrant the slight performance hit?

[scottyseng]

Just remembered something about the x5450's, they consume almost 50% more power than the E5450's, would the energy savings be enough to warrant the slight performance hit?

 

In the small time frame you plan to have the server running, no, the performance increase is worth the increase in power use (It's not a lot of power anyway...computers/small servers don't use much power at all...).

[ThomasDowns]

Just found another server, how does this sound:

 

HP Proliant DL580 G5 4U Server 
4 x 2.4ghz Intel Xeon E7450 Processors with 6 cores per cpu 
32GB RAM 

 

Its likely overkill but costs only abit more than the other 2x xeon server I mentioned.

[ictdude1]

server would win but man would it use alot of power

[scottyseng]

Just found another server, how does this sound:

 

HP Proliant DL580 G5 4U Server 

4 x 2.4ghz Intel Xeon E7450 Processors with 6 cores per cpu 

32GB RAM 

 

Its likely overkill but costs only abit more than the other 2x xeon server I mentioned.

 

That is way overkill, but I would go for it if performance is your goal. It will use quite a bit of power though. Still not enough to trip up the energy bill much since it's really going to be idling most of the time. It is 45nm gen though. Any older I would say no.