Memo

Ok. So my dad said he needs a new computer for his clinic as a server to back up certain things and not clog up their main server. The network guys told him this is what he needs and he asked me to see how much it would cost for me to build it. The thing is I have little knowldge about Dual p3s and SCSI stuff. I stick to AMD and Gaming rigs

He said he wants a Dual Pentium 3 system with SCSI Raid 5. What are some good Dual P3 systems. Do any of them have built in SCSI with raid controllers? If not, how much and what kind of controller is best? Also, what hard drives would be good for such a device. He also wants to add a KVM switch to this so that he can hook it up to his other computer I believe.

Hiro

As far as P3's go. Get Dual P3 Xeon's.

I don't know much about P3 boards, i'll research it more after I sleep.

And as for Hard Drives, Maxtor drives should work fine. I wouldn't recommend IBM with all the problems they have been having lately.

How much hard drive space did he want?

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NuTs62

hm. maxtor, seagate or WD should do you fine right now. How much are you planning on spending on a RAID card? The one that I have, (listed below) is supposedly pretty good. Mine has 4 independent channels, ATA 100 or was it 133? I forget.. anyways.. pretty decent. better than the highpoint and promise ones that i tried. as for speed, i don't know.. the price on this can get a lil steep though.. and as for dual p3,.. i haven't a clue.

Memo

The drives have to be SCSI not IDE. I need high speed drives

Jeffbx

For a business? Don't even think of building your own - buy a pre-built with a good warranty. You don't want to have everyone at the office looking at you if the thing goes down Monday morning. That's what service contracts are for.

He's working at a clinic, so doctor's office or something similar, right? How many users? If you're under 50 or so connections, you don't need a Xeon - stick to a PIII. You might not even need a dual if it'a a backup server. Maybe get a dual capable with a single proc & keep an eye on the processor usage.

I would recommend a Dell PowerEdge, maybe a 1400SC if you're on a budget. You can get a single P-III (dual capable), 512MB RAM, and 3x36GB drives in a RAID5 array for about $3k. Add about $600 for the 2nd processor. This is without an OS, and with a 3 year on site warranty.

jase71

Unless you're willing and able to provide 24/7 support, and maintain a parts closet for immediate fixes of major equipment, then buy a prebuilt.

If you're dead set on building it yourself, order two of everything, and have one spare sitting there ready to be swapped in if a part dies. This is a business, and a downtime of several days while replacement parts are ordered just isn't acceptable.

Far easier, in the long run, to just shell out the extra cash, and get something with a service contract. You won't have to stress when something goes wrong with it, and your dad won't have to get mad at you when it's not fixed immediately if something does go wrong.

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Memo

Y'all are right. This was what I first told my dad. That he should just buy it from Dell (He already has a Poweredge and all the other computers in his clinic are dells). I guess he just wanted to see around how much it would cost to make it. Thanks for the info though

Hiro

guess there is no need to look up motherboards and controller cards then.

Ladogaboy

Get a Mac. I hear that their servers are better than Dell's.

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nhbilly

I built a server for around $2000.oo

SuperMicro MB with a single XEON 2.oGhz if I can recall. Capable of being a dually. Everything was integrated ex: nic, video, etc.

Promise IDE RAID card ATA133

Four Matrox 60Gig ATA133

2 Stick of 512 DDR Memory.

SuperMicro Case - BIG and well ventilated


This company also needed to maintain a database system too. So far its still ticking............

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Jeffbx

Not to crap on your server building skillz, but IDE in a database server??? I hope that's because they are on a reeeeealy tight budget...

nhbilly

sorrie not to BE too RICH for your blood Jeff

but the room for expandability is always an option with this MB.
check it out for yourself. No need to explained to u. I can't say that for Dell, cause I wouldn't know.

Oh did I forget to say that I had a budget too?



http://supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Mother...7500/P4DPE.htm

Jeffbx

Sorry to be a HD elitist!

As an IT manager, it's part of my job...

rajatQ2

are sure you need RAID5 and SCSI? you will spend a LOT of money getting SCSI drives.

For example, each 18GB Ultra 160 (FAST!!!) 10K Drives run about $250 if you go Dell. You know how many of those you have to buy for raid5

I have never built servers that support a medium-number of concurrent connections, but i would think that the only servers that would use SCSI Raid 5 would support LOTS of users, at least 500 concurrent connections. I used to work for stratus computer corp, and we had scsi and fc setups similar in million dollar machines.


all i'm saying is scsi raid5 sounds like overkill for a backup server! if you really want to spend a lot, look at scsi raid 1 or 0+1.
Or if you wont even work the server that hard, just go IDE raid 1. Thats pretty fast too, plenty of people here can vouch for that.

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Memo

I went ahead and told my dad to get it from Dell. I think he bought his 30 other computers from dell except for the 4 laptops the main doctors use which are Toshibas. As far as the RAID5 scsi, I think it would be necessary. With 100 or os patients a day keeping lots of files on record and being able to access them quick is necessary Thanks for all the info guys. Now I know how to build my own server for when I want to do it myself either way

Jeffbx

In a situation like this, RAID5 would probably not be about speed, but about reliability and low downtime. It yields more space than 0 or 0+1, so it would be a great application, even for a backup server. Sure it's more expensive that other solutions, but cheaper than server downtime!

All the servers I buy in my company are RAID5 for this very reason, and I have less than 200 people in the office.

phlick

SCSI is a must for servers, most esp file servers.
For most fault tolerance mirror the OS drive and then make a RAID 5 array for the data.

And for the love of sweet baby Jeebus, don't buy a Dell. Buy a Compaq (HP) Proliant. It will cost more, no doubt, however your data is ever ever more secure and safe. I have seen more data go bye-bye on Dells (esp w/the older adaptec based scsi array controllers - and to be fair they have addressed that by ditching adaptec and going over to AMI which is better but still has issues) than I would care to relate. Compaq makes it very very tough to lose data.

Jeffbx

I agree and disagree with this -

I've used both in environments ranging from small 20 person offices to large 3000 seat corporations. In a large installation, the Proliant is a must. It's got better managment software, is easier to deploy, and service is a little better.

For a small office, however, unless you have money to burn, the Poweredge line is a great alternative. For the price difference, it's not worth it in a small (500 people or less) office. I have had great experience with Dell for years, and I would not hesitate to recommend them as a server platform.

phlick

They are cheap and I have seen them work, but man when things go bad, they go really bad.

(BTW I manage a large s/w datacenter w/over 2000 servers, maybe 10% Dell, 89% proliant, 1%other) - we have equal if not more problems w/our relatively few dells as we do w/all the other HPQ boxes... go figure.