Basic Server build help

[IvyAnder]

Hi, Im wondering if anyone has any input into building a budget server for a small/medium sized business. I've watched my husband build gaming PCs and learned a lot for linus tech tips and i was hoping to build something to meet the needs of the company without costing an arm and a leg. Currently were using an old dell T110II power edge server. Ive been having trouble with the Raid card in it, and one of the hard drives has issues like its gonna poop out on me at any moment. Ive tried to install new hard drives and bring my 330 gigs of memory up to a more modern 4TB but the old motherboard will not communicate with the new hard drives at all. My best guess is the company spent around $1400 for this big brick when it was new. I was hoping to build a system for around $500 ish. We really don't have that much we need on the server. Currently it hoses a 128 GB program that handles POS, Accounting and AP software; Ideally I'd like for it to also house my parts look up program as its currenlty installed on each individual work station as stand alone. currently im looking at this mother board ASUS Z9PA-U8 ATX Server Motherboard ATX LGA2011 Motherboard. with 16gbs of ram and 2x 2TB hard drives arranged in a Raid 1 array. My question is do i also need a raid card to make this work? And are there any other important variables that im over looking? 

 

PS love Linus tech tips!

[jj9987]

You don't need RAID card, software RAID is fine.

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

You don't need RAID card, software RAID is fine.

Bzzzt! Wrong. Hardware RAID is so much better than software.

10 minutes ago, IvyAnder said:

Ive been having trouble with the Raid card in it,

Define "trouble"

Server-level hardware, especially for a business is preferable to homegrown stuff, let's start with determining what's up with your T110 before you start chucking dosh at an insufficient solution

[IvyAnder]

Random system shut downs, lots of freezing up and having to be restarted through out the day. it didn't help that when i started messing with it i had to blow out about a pound of dust and carbon (were an engine repair shop with poor air filtration) off of my motherboard. At this point its old and slow and i would need to increase the size of my hard drives to be able to load more programs on to it. However the new hard drives are not recognized anywhere by the motherboard. even investigation into the bios does not show those drives anywhere. a few tech guys i talked to told me its very likely the old motherboard isn't recognizing the new hard drives because its too old and software has changed over time. 

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, IvyAnder said:

Random system shut downs, lots of freezing up and having to be restarted through out the day. it didn't help that when i started messing with it i had to blow out about a pound of dust and carbon (were an engine repair shop with poor air filtration) off of my motherboard. At this point its old and slow and i would need to increase the size of my hard drives to be able to load more programs on to it. However the new hard drives are not recognized anywhere by the motherboard. even investigation into the bios does not show those drives anywhere. a few tech guys i talked to told me its very likely the old motherboard isn't recognizing the new hard drives because its too old and software has changed over time. 

Quote my replies so I know you replied.

The tech guys are full of shit.

I have an old, ancient even, PowerEdge 2900 III and the PERC 6/i RAID card sees everything I've given it so far.

If you are getting freezes, then either one of two things are occuring

 

(1) bad RAM.

(2) bad motherboard.

 

Have you run Memtest86+ on the RAM yet? You should.

 

[jj9987]

17 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

Bzzzt! Wrong. Hardware RAID is so much better than software.

Modern software RAID solutions are pretty good, what advantages does hardware RAID bring then?

[Radium_Angel]

7 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

Modern software RAID solutions are pretty good, what advantages does hardware RAID bring then?

Hardware RAID boosts system performance for backups and restoration, especially in legacy equipment with limited processing power, by adding DRAM cache memory to the system. Translates to less strain on the system when writing backups, and less downtime when restoring data.

Adds RAID configuration options that may otherwise be unavailable using just the motherboard—like RAID 5/6, for example, which provides one and two drive failure tolerance.

Protection against data corruption resulting from a loss of power during the backup process. Battery backup units (BBU) or onboard Flash memory in RAID cards provide the extra fail-safes here.

Adds system compatibility with enterprise SAS HDDs, which are designed for 24/7 operation and have extra error correcting features compared to consumer-grade SATA III HDDs.

 

These are just a few examples. And in server-grade hardware, such as the PowerEdge in question, the perc controller will have all manner of options, plus battery backup (I have a perc 6/i in my server) that is all independent of the OS. 

[jj9987]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

Hardware RAID boosts system performance for backups and restoration, especially in legacy equipment with limited processing power, by adding DRAM cache memory to the system. Translates to less strain on the system when writing backups, and less downtime when restoring data.

Adds RAID configuration options that may otherwise be unavailable using just the motherboard—like RAID 5/6, for example, which provides one and two drive failure tolerance.

Protection against data corruption resulting from a loss of power during the backup process. Battery backup units (BBU) or onboard Flash memory in RAID cards provide the extra fail-safes here.

Adds system compatibility with enterprise SAS HDDs, which are designed for 24/7 operation and have extra error correcting features compared to consumer-grade SATA III HDDs.

 

These are just a few examples. And in server-grade hardware, such as the PowerEdge in question, the perc controller will have all manner of options, plus battery backup (I have a perc 6/i in my server) that is all independent of the OS. 

Fair enough, thanks for sharing.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, jj9987 said:

Fair enough, thanks for sharing.

Yeah no sweat.

In home machines, the only thing that is of paramount importance is a solid backup plan, regardless of how you get there.

But in server land, where you are hitting the server with multiple systems, at the same time, 24/7, reducing overhead and improving stability is what matters and you don't need some software-only RAID setup to eat itself under load.

Stability and reliability beat sped any day in the server world.