Small business server advice

[Ehuehuehue]

Hi,

 

I want to establish my own server for my business and I need advice, right now there are about 10 people working.

 

I will have some applications running on the server and also I need a file server and maybe I can also connect my cctv system to this server.

 

Here are the softwares that we will be using;

 

Quickbooks server edition,

Act Pro server edition,

Citrix server

Magix

 

because of these softwares, I will be using a windows server.

 

Other than that I may setup some virtual machines on the server in the future as a web server or for my projects.

 

I will need an ups in case of an electric shortage. I also need advice on that

 

Waiting for your replies

[jaslion]

Budget?

[KarathKasun]

I would go at least 1500VA for the power protection, something like this...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16842102266

 

A pre-built server comes with some benefits and some drawbacks, for a pre-built I would look at something like this...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=2NS-0006-0KJS1

 

If you need more capacity down the road you could add another CPU, more memory, and more storage.

Highly recommend using something like un-raid as a bare metal hypervisor (for storage abstraction) with Windows Server on top of that.

[Ehuehuehue]

44 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Budget?

about 2000$

 

but want to have the best build least cost system

[KarathKasun]

With that budget and using new parts you will be looking at an E3 v6 Xeon CPU on a C236 chipset motherboard with ECC memory.

 

If you shop around you can find a similar spec UPS for around 200, though with shorter run time.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, Ehuehuehue said:

I will need an ups in case of an electric shortage. I also need advice on that

 

6 hours ago, KarathKasun said:

I would go at least 1500VA for the power protection, something like this...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16842102266

 

Personally if the main reason for putting a UPS in is for power protection then I wouldn't bother with anything that isn't an Online Double Conversions type, though 1500VA of this type is out of the budget.

 

As you can see even a smaller capacity one is rather expensive, $1,100.

https://www.amazon.com/Eaton-PW9130-1000VA-Tower-120V/dp/B00836LSAO/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1523155752&sr=1-3&keywords=Eaton+PW9130+1000VA&dpID=41H5NxVuR4L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

[KarathKasun]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

 

Personally if the main reason for putting a UPS in is for power protection then I wouldn't bother with anything that isn't an Online Double Conversions type, though 1500VA of this type is out of the budget.

 

As you can see even a smaller capacity one is rather expensive, $1,100.

https://www.amazon.com/Eaton-PW9130-1000VA-Tower-120V/dp/B00836LSAO/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1523155752&sr=1-3&keywords=Eaton+PW9130+1000VA&dpID=41H5NxVuR4L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

If you are prone to brownouts a simple and inexpensive UPS is def not going to cut it and I would wholly recommend something like that, but it will eat your budget alive.  If your power is relatively stable you can get away with a less expensive unit, but I would still look for something with 30m+ run-times with your expected power load.  The extra run-time can be a life saver when doing storage maintenance.

[mariyaminks]

On 4/8/2018 at 1:38 AM, Ehuehuehue said:

about 2000$

 

but want to have the best build least cost system

is this your annual budget?

[NelizMastr]

Citrix Server? Can you elaborate on this? 

 

Are you considering a Ctirix solution like XenApp or XenDesktop so your users can logon and work on the server all the time? Are you connecting to some external application instead (for which you only need the receiver on the clients)?

 

Windows Server already offers a server based computing environment, called Remote Desktop Services. Get the appropriate user CALs and RDS user CALs and you're set. No expensive Citrix licensing required.

 

All that aside, I don't think 2 grand is a reasonable budget. You can't get anything very powerful at all for that. Maybe a HPE ML350 G9 with 2 disks and 16GB RAM, but that's about it. Is used an option?

 

You basically need to budget the following:

 

- hardware cost (server, PCs, networking etc.)

- software cost (Windows server, CALs, other software licenses)

- back-up (both in terms of data and power (UPS))