Server failing

[Legacyxblood401]

Hi there I wanted to ask the LTT forums about some advice about servers. So my schools server is failing right now and we are always having to reboot and hope it comes back online. So I wanted to know how hard it would be to A take the old server drives and put them in one of our old server from our company if I could even do that. B how I could update some key parts of the old one or C get a new server and how I would go about setting it up. The current server is a 10 years old dell G4 don't know the exact one. But has been getting memory errors and other problems. I just want to know the best option and if I have to get a new one don't want to spend a ton. Thank you for help 

[Electronics Wizardy]

 

What servers?

 

You can sometimes move raid arrays, but you often can't.

 

Basically buy a new one and restore backups sounds pretty easy now.

[Legacyxblood401]

Ok what would a good server cost and it is for my school 

[Raen]

I agree. Do not move hard drives from one server to another unless they have identical RAID cards. Even then, I don't trust it.

 

If you're replacing with a new server.. just put the new server on the network and just copy files from old one to new one.. 

[Raen]

1 minute ago, Legacyxblood401 said:

Ok what would a good server cost and it is for my school 

Define what you consider good. How much are you willing to spend, etc. Give us some metrics to work with. What are you expecting the server to do?

[Legacyxblood401]

500 to 1000 and to be honest any thing would be better then the one we have now 

[Legacyxblood401]

So mid range 

[Raen]

Okay, and what is it to be used for?

[PeskyEscky]

Visualising the server would make transferring it much easier for a start. Double check the licensing buy Hyper-V is often free to use, I think VMWare also have a free product.

[Legacyxblood401]

The server would be for my school to run the student drives no more then 10tb 

[Legacyxblood401]

When I get home I will see he specs on my old server and ask you guys what you think about it 

[Raen]

So it's simply a file server? Not doing anything else like Active Directory, DNS, bla bla? No other applications it needs to run?

[Raen]

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-PROLIANT-DL380-G6-2x-X5560-2-8GHz-Quad-Core-24GB-16x-2-5-Bays-2x-P410-2x-PSU-/322413074477?hash=item4b1151182d:g:vjQAAOSwWnFV~KwJ

Fill with as many of these as is your budget, up to 16 maximum https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Portable-External-Storage-STDR2000100/dp/B00FRHTSK4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487265246&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+2tb+slim''

 

Then RAID 6 or  RAID 10 all the drives depending on your needs

[Legacyxblood401]

Yes if I am correct but I am almost positive the sever just runs the student drive for my school 

[Nikolithebear]

You should probably look into buying and moving to either a Dell R720 (If you want to go with Dell Still) Or a HP equivalent.  Upgrade and migrate over the data bit by bit.