Small Business Server

[Leegit]

My dad has a small business and he has always have problems with his server. He has roughly 15 other computers using it. The last company to upgrade it basically charged him 5k and gave him some storage upgrades I'd like to figure out a build for him. But have no clue what to select except I really think he needs RAID 5. If his system is down he has zero production.

What would you recommend with total server cost around 2-3k, what MOBO/CPU, RAM, etc?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I'd recommend going prebuilt, like a Dell PowerEdge, so he has a real support group behind the hardware.

 

[Janus67]

+1 with ATM. A business is not a place for home built products. Spend the money on a Dell or HP business line product and get the door to door support they offer.

Especially if you are not capable of setting up and supporting the product as well as an OEM can.

 

[tungureanu]

i would go with a HP Microserver Gen8.
Something like this config http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859108028

 

[Leegit]

Is there a particular model of the Dell PowerEdge that would be able to get the job done? He also has no rack, so something that more tower-like would be preferred I believe. Thanks.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

You didn't say anything about what it is being used for and if it is CPU/GPU intensive.

Any of the PowerEdge models should be able to perform RAID 5, they have a RAID AIC available.
They also come in tower or rack versions, so a tower is available.

 

[Leegit]

You didn't say anything about what it is being used for and if it is CPU/GPU intensive.

Any of the PowerEdge models should be able to perform RAID 5, they have a RAID AIC available.
They also come in tower or rack versions, so a tower is available.

Good point.

It's a dentist office. So I believe it would be more CPU intensive. They run reports through the dental software 3-4 times a day. The current server tends to lock up quite a bit sometimes so they tend to try to run sub-reports 1 at a time.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Find out what the software is, then we can see what the recommended and/or minimum specs are.

 

[Leegit]

Find out what the software is, then we can see what the recommended and/or minimum specs are.

Softdent: http://www.carestreamdental.com/us/en/practicemanagement/CS SOFTDENT#Features and Benefits

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Softdent: http://www.carestreamdental.com/us/en/practicemanagement/CS SOFTDENT#Features and Benefits

Very minimal hardware required, really.
I'd go for a 4c/8t Skylake Xeon if it were my choice w/ 16GB of RAM and whatever storage space/config they need.

http://www.carestreamdental.com/Ima...rements.SoftDent-SysReqs-SchedulerVersion.pdf

 

[Leegit]

You're right. Doesn't seem like much but they are always have problems. I'll have to take a look at his old servers specs.

I think also part of the problem is the server has no RAID currently and the workstations are loading up patient files concurrently.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Sounds like a throughput issue (either network or disk) instead of compute issues.

 

[Janus67]

Sounds like a throughput issue (either network or disk) instead of compute issues.

Agreed.

If the database is a bit large you can make a huge difference with some solid state drives to host the files, but unless they are being hit really hard a handful of mechanical disks would do just fine.

I assume they have a proper back up solution for this?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Before anyone asks: *** RAID is not a backup ***

 

[Janus67]

Before anyone asks: *** RAID is not a backup ***

^^^^^ x infinity.

 

[Leegit]

Before anyone asks: *** RAID is not a backup ***

They backup daily to external drives. However, since the most recent guy "upgraded the server". They haven't been able to backup to them, been about 2-3 months since last backup.