New Serverererer :-)

[Repulse]

Hi all,

The small company I work for are looking to purchase a new system that could host the company website, Sage, and the rota software. Aswell as this they are also wanting to make it a file server so that all documentation can be put in the one location and all personel can access the most upto date files right away as oppose to emailing each other new files/manually updating files on each system.

They are looking for a system that is compact and reliable that can be left on 24/7.

They currently run a small Intel 4 2.25Ghz, 500mb RAM, with only 18gb HDD space. Its been running practically none stop for 4 years none stop hosting the website and the Rota system, Sage is starting to make it struggle.

I found a HP ProLiant, i am assuming it would be capable after comparing the specifications, not too fussed on the processor, but they seem pretty well priced for what they are, but does anyone have any other suggestions? :-)

[Vreki]

Re: New Serverererer :-)

Not my speciality, but I know that "our" server room is almost exclusively HP Proliant, although in rack and blade configuration.
And we are certainly not fond of downtime :)

I only recall one case of a Proliant server dying on me, but that was unpleasant enough. These days we visualize everything that we can.
But I was wondering, wouldn't it be better for a small company to have its website hosted somewhere professional?
That could provide redundant internet connection, 24/7 monitoring and offsite backup and failover.

Of course that may be overkill if the company can do without its website for a week or two.

[Repulse]

Re: New Serverererer :-)

Of course that may be overkill if the company can do without its website for a week or two.

The company caters for care and training. The training website is hosted externally where as the care website is hosted on the current in house server (so downtime isn't that much of a problem as far as the website goes). We do however need a reliable server for the rota system that can be accessed externally by the HR staff when required.

[CptainCrunch]

Re: New Serverererer :-)

I am an HP authorized service guy. Because of that, I may be a bit biased, but I find the Proliant series very nice and I have worked on a number of different brands of servers. Im also IBM and Dell authorized, sooo...

With that said, I dont know anyone who has this microserver nor have I worked on one. Looking at the specs, there is not a lot of upgradeability in it.

Another issue on an IT/admin standpoint is that the drives are not hot-plugable and there is no redundant power supply. So any repairs that may need to be done will have to be done with the server off. The unit also only does RAID 0/1, yet can support up to 4 drives. If you want the redundancy of RAID 1, you can only use 2 drives.

So this unit could be used for the website that doesn't matter what the downtime is, but I personally wouldn't use it for the rota system. If you were my customer, I wouldn't recommend it to you for that.

Crunch

[Repulse]

Re: New Serverererer :-)

What reasonably priced server eould you recommend crunch? :-p

[CptainCrunch]

Re: New Serverererer :-)

For the full redundancy, the ML330

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/15351-15351-241434-241646-241477-3948598.html

If you can really sacrifice a few things, this one would be my low end choice:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/15351-15351-241434-241646-3328424-3884323.html

Both have more upgradeable options, longer warranty, better recovery, hot-plug hard drives, and a nicer RAID controller.

Crunch