Server for 10-20 users

[josh_frawley97]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could help me with this.  What hardware would be needed for a server for around 10-20 users to log on and use for file sharing and managing users.  This will need to be quite and sit in a room without being noticed.  The server is used to manage accounts and restrict what files they can open and user files like a normal computer.  This server will also have to run a print server for the users however only 5 will be using it.  There is no set budget but the cheapest option that will work fine will be the best.  There isn't going to be many more devices connected to it.  I will be running windows server 2012 on this for the user management. 

[Redportal]

Hi Josh,

 

There are a few questions I first ask myself. The first being is this for a small business / startup or for home use?

There isn't really much of a difference between the two, but if it's a business there should be a few more items on your check list. (Performance vs Reliability etc)

 

I would personally recommend a HP Micro server for this. Yes you could alternatively purchase a rackmout dedicated server or something much more powerful, but for simply running a small file server and a print server, I think that a HP Micro server would not only fit your budget (cheap) but they are reliable and quiet little boxes in my experience.

 

*You can buy them as a bare bone unit from ebay / amazon for around £120+

http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=5379860

 

 

[GateToTheFuture]

Any specific requirements? VMWare? Will you be remoting in or do you want passthrough? How many cores do you want per account?

[manikyath]

just to make sure.. you're talking about using windows server as a domain server right? (as in, 10-20 users with a computer running windows pro, logging in trough the server)

[josh_frawley97]

Just now, manikyath said:

just to make sure.. you're talking about using windows server as a domain server right? (as in, 10-20 users with a computer running windows pro, logging in trough the server)

Yeah

[manikyath]

Just now, josh_frawley97 said:

Yeah

windows server 2012 recommended system requirements should fit the bill

[manikyath]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core OEM/Tray Processor  ($236.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG M9i 48.4 CFM CPU Cooler  ($19.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock E3C224-V+ ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($157.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($22.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($22.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Seagate Enterprise NAS 6TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($249.99 @ Other World Computing) 
Storage: Seagate Enterprise NAS 6TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($249.99 @ Other World Computing) 
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply  ($109.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1240.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-03 16:44 EDT-0400

 

this is a pretty "standard" server build:

- simple quad core xeon, does what it needs to

- i put a decent cooler in it, its only $20, if your office doesnt have a "computer room" it's always nice when they dont sound like a jet engine.

- i went for a server mobo, for reasons.

- 8GB ECC memory, could go 16 or 32 if you feel like it, doubt it's gonna be necessary

- 250GB boot SSD, having it an SSD is probably unnecessary, but eh. might as well. if you wanna splurge, get two of these and put them on raid1 to have redundancy in case of failure.

- 2x seagate enterprise NAS 6TB drives for storage, the mobo supports raid, depending on your preferences you can either do hardware raid1, software raid1 trough winserv, or get a third one and go for raid5 on either hardware or software.

- no video card, the mobo's VGA port is plenty, and when it's all set up it'll probably live the rest of its life without a display hooked up to it.

- define R5, no reason why, other than that i like it, see it as a placeholder for your case of preference

- 80+ plat power supply, because it really adds up when they're running 24/7

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

i put a decent cooler in it, its only $20, if your office doesnt have a "computer room" it's always nice when they dont sound like a jet engine

I have that cpu, and its dead silent with the stock cooler and doesn't even spin up under max load.

 

Id personally get some more ram.

 

Id also suggest buying a premade sever from dell/hp as you get good support if something goes wrong.

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I have that cpu, and its dead silent with the stock cooler and doesn't even spin up under max load.

 

Id personally get some more ram.

 

Id also suggest buying a premade sever from dell/hp as you get good support if something goes wrong.

i'd actually not suggest going straight to dell/hp if you're a company, there's a lot of local companies that deal with being building, configuring, and supporting servers and/or desktops for companies that are too small to have their own IT team.

they'll more than likely start from 'prebuilts' from dell/hp, but they'll custom fit them to what you need, what they have experience with, and deal with at least the initial configuration and making sure it works.

[leadeater]

18 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i'd actually not suggest going straight to dell/hp if you're a company, there's a lot of local companies that deal with being building, configuring, and supporting servers and/or desktops for companies that are too small to have their own IT team.

they'll more than likely start from 'prebuilts' from dell/hp, but they'll custom fit them to what you need, what they have experience with, and deal with at least the initial configuration and making sure it works.

That generally is the case when buying from HP etc, you can't actually buy directly from them. Dell is the exception to this for their low end server products but for the higher end stuff you have to go through a retail/service partner.

 

You can buy direct from HP but you have to be damn huge and ordering thousands of servers a year else they won't even be interested in talking to you.

[dalekphalm]

I'll give my opinion on a few things:

1. The specs of @manikyath's build are pretty solid. No need for additional RAM if it's mainly a file/print server and DC. You can always upgrade RAM later if the server starts to run low.

2. I disagree with @manikyath about buying a custom built. I agree w/ @Electronics Wizardy in that buying a pre-built is probably the best idea for a small business that doesn't have a big dedicated IT team.

 

Obviously, you don't necessarily need to buy the pre-built directly through the OEM, but I would highly consider a Dell or HP tower server. Something w/ similar specs to @manikyath's build.

 

The important part about pre-builds from OEM's like Dell and HP is the warranty. When this is your only server in the office, down time can actually kill a small business. Dell's Pro Support business warranty, for example, is freaking awesome. Next day parts and labour - tech onsite to do repairs/hardware swap if needed.

 

If you build your own, AT BEST, you're looking at WEEKS of downtime between when you RMA, say, a dead motherboard, and when you get the replacement. That's totally fine for Jimmy at home, who can just lay off the LoL for a couple weeks while the new board is shipping back, but for a business, that's simply unacceptable.

 

Not to mention the fact that you're dealing with 5-10 different hardware vendors and warranties, instead of one. And you're responsible for troubleshooting and diagnosing all the issues, whereas you can just call up the Dell or HP support line, and easily and quickly have them help you figure out the issue.

 

To each their own, and you probably would save money building your own. But if anything happened and you needed to use any of the warranties, those cost savings would go out the window.

[manikyath]

22 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

---

+1'in there.

 

that story is why i also suggested going to an "IT solutions" company, because basicly they take all the hassle out your hands, you just call them, and give them a dollah (in practisce lots of dollahs) and they'll make it work. when you buy a 'prebuilt server' directly from a big name like dell or HP, chances are you'll still have to deal with the issues yourself, and in the least are looking at ~24 hours of downtime when something breaks. "IT solutions" companies generally have some replacement parts on hand (especially if they sell the same box to lots of custommers), and troubleshoot the issues for you so you can focus on what matters to your buisiness: making money.

 

the thing is that OP didnt really imply if it was for a buisiness or not. while 10-20 people does indicate it most likely is, it could also be a hobby group, a school project (even if done by a teacher, funds are usually quite short here), or just a very big family

 

if it's buisiness related (AKA if uptime means dollars in, and downtime means dollars out the wallet) defenately spend the extra dough to have less hassle, if it's not buisiness related, it'll most likely be too much of an expense to bother with an "IT solutions" company, at which point doing it yourself could end up being the better solution.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

+1'in there.

 

that story is why i also suggested going to an "IT solutions" company, because basicly they take all the hassle out your hands, you just call them, and give them a dollah (in practisce lots of dollahs) and they'll make it work. when you buy a 'prebuilt server' directly from a big name like dell or HP, chances are you'll still have to deal with the issues yourself, and in the least are looking at ~24 hours of downtime when something breaks. "IT solutions" companies generally have some replacement parts on hand (especially if they sell the same box to lots of custommers), and troubleshoot the issues for you so you can focus on what matters to your buisiness: making money.

 

the thing is that OP didnt really imply if it was for a buisiness or not. while 10-20 people does indicate it most likely is, it could also be a hobby group, a school project (even if done by a teacher, funds are usually quite short here), or just a very big family

 

if it's buisiness related (AKA if uptime means dollars in, and downtime means dollars out the wallet) defenately spend the extra dough to have less hassle, if it's not buisiness related, it'll most likely be too much of an expense to bother with an "IT solutions" company, at which point doing it yourself could end up being the better solution.

Agreed in full. Having an IT Firm who is an authorized Reseller, is better than direct buy. You can have them do the whole setup, or just act as on call emergency support with x number of free calls negotiated into the sale.

[Tsx]

Both is possible. You should ask yourself what is be biggest worst case. I give you an example.

 

You go with your own build including a daily Backup for Data an a bare metal for your dc and you server crashes to the death i mean total death.

 

What happens:

1. You order an ne Server with 4 Weeks to deliver
2. First of all nobody can print. No Problem at 10 people to install the printer direktly. (Not Nice but no kill)
3. As long as no password expires you can go without your domain controller.
4. You Networkfiles are unavailable. No Problem go to the next store, buy a 0815 NAS for at least 500 $ copy Data from Backup to this NAS an bring it to network. If you are fast this meens half a day up to a day without files, depending on how complicated your rights management is. (Critical if your Backup is not valid or defect to)
5. Most Important in most companys are Mail, without this for longer than a day you burn in hell i promise. But you didnt say word of mail so i think you use a cloud base solution like office 365 this will work even without your server. (So no Problem for you in this case

In my opinion you could go with both as long as you have a good backup and some money for such a solution i told you. If you are not able to handle this case i would prefer a it consulting firm you buy your hardware including a service helpfdesk for 2h a month. Give them advice that they should monitor your system and do all nesseccary if something goes wrong.

 

 

Edit:

If you have a real light rights management you could also go with 2 QNAP NAS filer. It is capable of user manegent even as domain controller, could also manage files and printer. Buy to identical an let them replicate. If one is down the other will do his job instant without downtime. In the meantime you could rma the defect one. For little companys like yours this is a good solution too. 

[Nimatek]

I would also look at the HP/Dell route for hardware - simply for the no hassle warranty. We deal primarily with Dell and it is quite a relief when you have 4 hour Pro Support on a server that needs to be up and running 99% of the time. Their tech support is fantastic even if you don't have all the know how to troubleshoot a problem on your own. And knowing that a replacement part is literally only 4 hours away makes the headache a lot more endurable when something does go wrong.

 

A small T130 (http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-t130/pd) or similiar might be a good starting point.

 

Also maybe consider running it as a virtual (MS HyperV to save some costs) with something like Altaro's HyperV backup to assist with recovery in case of disaster recovery or the sneaky ransomware attacks.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

7 minutes ago, Nimatek said:

I would also look at the HP/Dell route for hardware - simply for the no hassle warranty. We deal primarily with Dell and it is quite a relief when you have 4 hour Pro Support on a server that needs to be up and running 99% of the time. Their tech support is fantastic even if you don't have all the know how to troubleshoot a problem on your own. And knowing that a replacement part is literally only 4 hours away makes the headache a lot more endurable when something does go wrong.

 

A small T130 (http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-t130/pd) or similiar might be a good starting point.

 

Also maybe consider running it as a virtual (MS HyperV to save some costs) with something like Altaro's HyperV backup to assist with recovery in case of disaster recovery or the sneaky ransomware attacks.

 

 

Dell also has their own backup software, called AppAssure - it works with VM's or physical boxes. We're running it, and we're pretty happy so far (We've had it for a couple months - it came with our new server upgrade and virtualization project).

[Nimatek]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Dell also has their own backup software, called AppAssure - it works with VM's or physical boxes. We're running it, and we're pretty happy so far (We've had it for a couple months - it came with our new server upgrade and virtualization project).

 

Good point! We haven't used it yet but I think I must make a plan to get a trial and compare to some of our current solutions.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Nimatek said:

Good point! We haven't used it yet but I think I must make a plan to get a trial and compare to some of our current solutions.

I'm not sure how it compares to other current enterprise solutions, but it kicks the ass of Symantec Enterprise Backup that we were using on the old server.

[Nimatek]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm not sure how it compares to other current enterprise solutions, but it kicks the ass of Symantec Enterprise Backup that we were using on the old server.

Symantec was great when it was still the old Veritas tape backups, after Symantec took over it just got progressively worse with each new update. Luckily we don't use tapes anymore.

 

Altaro is quite good without being too expensive, also their home/single user option (Oops! Backup) is very good. It is almost like Mac's Time Machine only for Windows. Just pop in a small 2.5" drive and your backup is done without having to think about. Also the ability to configure it to run every hour (or whatever interval you need) is fantastic!

[Tsx]

I use veeam and manage all vms with it. We have b2d and b2t the last one with and without tapeloader. I really love this software. It simple and powerfull even it you do advanced stuff like pre and post scripting this is no problem.

 

Only to have a feeling for size I do daily backups of 300gb in under 10 min. Weekly backups of 10 tb in 16h both b2d and b2t.

 

Big advantage of veeam is the wrapper. I wrapped a sbs with dc mail and fileservices into a vm without big business. Simple boot the wrap, reconfigured network am tadaaaaa works.