patseguin Global Moderator Posted June 12, 2019 Author Global Moderator Share Posted June 12, 2019 42 minutes ago, DevTech said: You are on the "small" side of "small business" RAID-0 - NEVER RAID-1 - probably ok, but make sure you know what to do with it RAID-anything else you won't bother to learn it and it will be a pain, just avoid it no RAID at all might also work if you store a spare hard drive in the case or nearby shelf and do Backblaze.com or equivilent more often than once a day which is the way these services work. If drive fails, you slap in spare and restore, maybe an hour of downtime BUT really, over and over I suggest a Samsung 970 Pro 4 TB - so so unlikely to fail anyways... spare it or RAID-1 it... SO I'd configure 2x 4TB 970's. I'd have 4TB usable space with a mirrored drive. Am I correct? @sc302I get where you're coming from. How many drives are required for RAID 6? Do you agree with Devtech on going with maybe 2 SSD's in RAID1 since they will have an extremely low failure rate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 18 minutes ago, patseguin said: SO I'd configure 2x 4TB 970's. I'd have 4TB usable space with a mirrored drive. Am I correct? @sc302I get where you're coming from. How many drives are required for RAID 6? Do you agree with Devtech on going with maybe 2 SSD's in RAID1 since they will have an extremely low failure rate? So don't forget that none of gets to sit down with you and do a full needs assessment. We are at the other end of a long tunnel using our imagination for what things are like for you and have built up a mental model over the course of the thread... So with RAID, I imagine you are in some little town outside of Buffalo on a sales call and you get a call from the office that there is this flashing red light on the RAID ARRAY (if you get one) - so what do you do next? you've never done it, so there is a panicked search for the manual, maybe it gets found, maybe an employee pulls out the wrong drive etc - you do embroidery, so I.T. has to be no more complicated than the PCs you use every day That's my take... Far easier to pull up a Backblaze web interface (or similar product) and restore a few hours of lost data. You could even have coverage on every client PC as well... EDIT: also never forget RAID does not protect from data damage like DEL *.* - that damage is faithfully mirrored! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 12, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 12, 2019 Raid 6 is 4 drives. I wont disagree but not sure. I have a 970 in my computer at home which essentially runs 24x7 but I am not running a database on it or having that many transactions on it or having multiple users accessing it at any given time. I am skeptical of a 970 being the right solution, I can not say it is wrong or right. I will say I am not 100% on board with that. It is consumer grade, Samsung does make enterprise grade at a higher cost. Ssd has been around for a while and while I think everything and everyone should have it, I think it depends. Spinning drives have a much higher failure rate, but I have heard people with large transactions (graphic design/cad) prematurely killing ssd drives due to the amount of read writes these programs do. Which brings me to I am uncertain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 15 minutes ago, sc302 said: Raid 6 is 4 drives. I wont disagree but not sure. I have a 970 in my computer at home which essentially runs 24x7 but I am not running a database on it or having that many transactions on it or having multiple users accessing it at any given time. I am skeptical of a 970 being the right solution, I can not say it is wrong or right. I will say I am not 100% on board with that. It is consumer grade, Samsung does make enterprise grade at a higher cost. Ssd has been around for a while and while I think everything and everyone should have it, I think it depends. Spinning drives have a much higher failure rate, but I have heard people with large transactions (graphic design/cad) prematurely killing ssd drives due to the amount of read writes these programs do. Which brings me to I am uncertain. It is the writes that kill. I have done it with huge C++ compiles. But the Samsung 970 Pro is designed for heavy write loads ("Pro" = write focus) and uses long lasting 3D NAND Flash that is better than Intel/Microm Flash The only way to get more longevity is to go with more spare cells or Enterprise SLC Flash. The Samsung has a few gigs of SLC as a chache on board but a whole drive of SLC is not affordable by anyone here! You could buy a 4TB, provision at 3TB and it would last FOREVER (i.e. until computer is obsolete in 15 years) The fantastic IOPS and Q-Depth on the Samsung make it just as good as enterprise for multi-user and DB loads that would FAR EXCEED an embroidery shop using FileMaker! EDIT: it will probably still last 4 years at 4TB without the over=provision since is comes with spare cells of course that are sized for anticipated usage model, which fro the Pro is write-heavy EDIT: consumer stuff often does not have the high temp rating for high-density rack mounting "blades" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goatsniffer Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 IDK, the shop has 5 whole people and does embroidery. If he's not already thinking quantum architecture he might as well be painting with feces on a cave wall waiting for the dinosaurs to go to sleep so he can go out foraging. You guys are talking about Hypervisors, but you should be thinking Ludicrousvisors which are much faster depending on the size of your helmet. Seriously, this thread got out of control halfway through the first page. Peen measuring more than helpful information. Circaflex, sc302, Mindovermaster and 1 other 3 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 3 minutes ago, goatsniffer said: IDK, the shop has 5 whole people and does embroidery. If he's not already thinking quantum architecture he might as well be painting with feces on a cave wall waiting for the dinosaurs to go to sleep so he can go out foraging. You guys are talking about Hypervisors, but you should be thinking Ludicrousvisors which are much faster depending on the size of your helmet. Seriously, this thread got out of control halfway through the first page. Peen measuring more than helpful information. If you want to make such a comment, that's your choice but maybe it would make sense to read the whole thing first before engaging comment? It had a lot of standard Enterprise advice at the start because it looked like an Enterprise config. Then the thread adapted to focus down on a small embroidery shop and just how much home-savvy vs business support is needed. Along the way it was a FUN ride and very active and the OP got lots of material to ponder on - all a GOOD THING (tm) Circaflex and fusi0n 1 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 I just got back from a computer conference on processing of data. Unlike previous years where there was a debate on the merits of cloud vs on-premise, the tipping point appears to finally have happened. But what a nice experience to see people working hard to push an industry forward. What a contrast to some of the pettiness seen in this thread and elsewhere... Circaflex: you need to get out of the basement for a while. How anyone enjoys being a TROLL beats me, but your Trolling is just juvenile. Goatsniffer: you need to contribute something to help patseguin like the many people in this thread. His search for an ideal config is ongoing and if he wants to second-guess every last detail of a significant expenditure, there is nothing odd about that. People volunteer their time to help others and the person being helped can pack and choose ideas that THEY decide are useful to them. Try making one yourself, before denigrating the work of many people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted June 13, 2019 Author Global Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2019 I tried doing another Dell build and it told me something about needing iDRAC Server Manager. That wasn't even listed as an option so I had to abandon it. I'm now trying Lenovo and it's even more complicated. I wonder if maybe I need to get on the phone with Dell and talk to someone about a config. I just fear they are going to unnecessarily beef up the system to make money. I'm kind of thinking now about getting a low end Xeon processor and 4x 4TB SAS hard drives in RAID 6. Then I'll keep a daily backup on an external drive and then find a good cloud backup solution and back up to cloud weekly, or even nightly assuming the backups are differential. On a side note, Shopworks offers cloud servers. They price it at like $300/month. I suppose that's not bad if I was going to lease a new server for that much anyways. I'm just not sure our internet is good enough for all the workstations to connect to a cloud server and access the databases that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 I will build a low budget dell server for you and send you the specs. I won’t go ssd for os drives and will keep it under 5k. Will go for the enterprise drac, you will need to hook that card up to your network and give it a static IP (outside of your dhcp scope) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted June 13, 2019 Author Global Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2019 14 minutes ago, sc302 said: I will build a low budget dell server for you and send you the specs. I won’t go ssd for os drives and will keep it under 5k. Will go for the enterprise drac, you will need to hook that card up to your network and give it a static IP (outside of your dhcp scope) What do you and everyone else think about Lenovo? Here's a config I just did: Base ThinkSystem ST250 3.5" Chassis Base 1 Processors Intel Xeon E-2104G 4+2C 65W 3.2GHz Processor 1 Memory ThinkSystem 16GB TruDDR4 2666MHz (2Rx8, 1.2V) UDIMM 1 Storage ThinkSystem ST250 4x3.5" SATA/SAS Backplane 1 Select Storage devices - configured RAID 1 ThinkSystem RAID 930-8i 2GB Flash PCIe 12Gb Adapter 1 Primary Array - RAID 6 1 ThinkSystem 3.5" 4TB 7.2K SAS 12Gb Hot Swap 512n HDD 4 ThinkSystem M.2 5100 480GB SATA 6Gbps Non-Hot Swap SSD 1 Optical Drive ThinkSystem External USB DVD-RW Optical Disk Drive 1 Power ThinkSystem ST250 250W Fixed PSU 1 2.8m, 10A/120V, C13 to NEMA 5-15P (US) Line Cord 1 Others ThinkSystem ST250 Motherboard 1 Feature Enable TPM 1.2 1 OS & Software Windows Server 2019 Essentials - MultiLang (not preinstalled) 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Client Access License (10 User) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 Lenovo is good. Confusing to build. A little more expensive then dell. Support is a bit worse than dell. Did you call a dell rep, do you have one? Did you work out specs with them? Tell them what your needs are? Did you call a var and have them help you out with a few different server builds? I can put you in touch with some of mine, there is also a var or two on reddit.com/r/sysadmin who view the weekly am I getting **** topic who would help you out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted June 13, 2019 Author Global Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2019 4 minutes ago, sc302 said: Lenovo is good. Confusing to build. A little more expensive then dell. Support is a bit worse than dell. Did you call a dell rep, do you have one? Did you work out specs with them? Tell them what your needs are? Did you call a var and have them help you out with a few different server builds? I can put you in touch with some of mine, there is also a var or two on reddit.com/r/sysadmin who view the weekly am I getting **** topic who would help you out. Yeah I just wanted to see how they compare to Dell. I already have a Dell small business credit line so I'll likely be using them still. I didn't call anyone at Dell yet. I am curious so see what configuration you put together. Don't feel like you have to though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 It will be some time before I get to a desktop but I don’t think you are in a rush. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 As you know you never pay the price on the dell site when dealing with a rep, could be another thousand or more off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted June 13, 2019 Author Global Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2019 7 minutes ago, sc302 said: It will be some time before I get to a desktop but I don’t think you are in a rush. Also, does Windows Server Essentials sound appropriate for me as opposed to Server Standard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted June 13, 2019 Author Global Moderator Share Posted June 13, 2019 OK I'm getting pretty tired of thinking about this. Dell for whatever reason doesn't offer RAID6 as an option. Here's what I came up with this morning: PowerEdge T340 PowerEdge T340 Server Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Trusted Platform Module 2.0 Chassis Configuration 3.5" Chassis up to 8 Hot Plug Hard Drives SHIPPING PowerEdge T340 Shipping Processor Intel® Xeon® E-2124 3.3GHz, 8M cache, 4C/4T, turbo (71W) Processor Thermal Configuration Standard Heatsink for PE T340 Memory DIMM Type and Speed 2666MT/s UDIMMs Memory Configuration Type Performance Optimized Memory Capacity 16GB 2666MT/s DDR4 ECC UDIMM RAID Configuration C4, RAID 5 for 3 or more HDDs or SSDs (Matching Type/Speed/Capacity) RAID/Internal Storage Controllers PERC H330 RAID Controller, Adapter, Full Height Hard Drives (3) 4TB 7.2K RPM SATA 6Gbps 512n 3.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive Additional Network Cards On-Board Broadcom 5720 Dual Port 1Gb LOM Embedded Systems Management iDRAC9,Enterprise Internal Optical Drive DVD +/-RW, SATA, Internal Rack Rails No Rack Rails, No Cable Management Arm, No Casters Bezel No Bezel BIOS and Advanced System Configuration Settings Performance BIOS Setting Power Cords (2) 2X NEMA 5-15P to C13 Wall Plug, 125 Volt, 15 AMP, 10 Feet (3m), Power Cord, North America Power Supply Dual, Hot-plug, Redundant Power Supply 1+1, 495W System Documentation No Systems Documentation, No OpenManage DVD Kit Operating System Windows Server® 2019 Essentials,FI,No Med, No CAL, Multi Language OS Media Kits Windows Server® 2019 Essentials,Media Kit, Multi Language Licenses Bring Your Own VSAN Licenses Client Access Licenses 10-pack of Windows Server 2019/2016 User CALs (Standard or Datacenter) Advanced System Configurations UEFI BIOS Boot Mode with GPT Partition Shipping Information US No Canada Ship Charge Motherboard PowerEdge T340 Motherboard Shipping Material PowerEdge T340 Ship Material Group Manager iDRAC Group Manager, Disabled Password iDRAC,Factory Generated Password Dell Services: Hardware Support Basic Next Business Day 12Months, 12 Month(s) Deployment Services No Installation iDRAC Service Module iDRAC Server Manager Enabled Edit quantity in Cart $5,814.10 Save 37% on select PowerEdge T340 Tower Server through Dell Small Business.Details Questions? Our Small Business Technology Advisors can help. Click to ChatDetails No interest if paid in full within 90 days on qualifying XPS systems $699+^Details - $2,151.78 Item Total: $3,662.32 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 In 2019, it is plain nuts NOT to be using SSD unless you have enormous data requirements which you don't. FileMaker on SSD is the only improvement you would actually notice on this upgrade for all the expense involved. And frankly, the current jump in performance of NVMe over SATA SSD makes that yet ANOTHER Generational Quantum Jump. Buy a new server in 2019, and be TWO generations behind right at the start? (That qualifies you to get a job in the Enterprise I.T. field ) EDIT: Sigh, moan, groan... I will try and navigate the Dell server config to see if they are hiding engineering talent in some dusty corner... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 It isn’t nuts. It is small business. Big box takes a bit to catch up esp on their small business side. This isn’t data center or build your own white box. Every big box/mass quantity manufacturer is on the same page. The only one that might not be is Apple, but I don’t think they buy in the quantity as the big box players. I don’t think you understand small business even a little bit. Fwiw I went from spinning disk to flash for a heavy back end database and I saw 0.00% gain in regards to speed. I have 8gb fiber channel and I am using roughly 50Mb/s at any given time. I didn’t need flash for speed. I got flash because it wasn’t that much more in my Sans and spinning disk has too many moving parts which eat away at power as well as the previous rack space. A single tower server for a small business it doesn’t matter. Ssd isn’t going to help as much as you think outside of launching apps faster and booting faster. It is a always up server, fast boot isn’t a need neither is launching apps. Business continuity is a need, focus more on that and less on cutting edge tech. Maybe the high end rack servers will have what you are looking for, but that isn’t what he is looking at which is essentially a desktop with some redundancies at common points of failure. patseguin 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 8 minutes ago, sc302 said: It isn’t nuts. It is small business. Big box takes a bit to catch up esp on their small business side. This isn’t data center or build your own white box. Every big box/mass quantity manufacturer is on the same page. The only one that might but be is Apple, but I don’t think they buy in the quantity as the big box players. I don’t think you understand small business even a little bit. Fwiw I went from spinning disk to flash for a heavy back end database and I saw 0.00% gain in regards to speed. I have 8gb finer channel and I am using roughly 50Mb/s at any given time. I didn’t need flash for speed. I got flash because it wasn’t that much more in my Sans and spinning disk has too many moving parts which eat away at power as well as the previous rack space. A single tower server for a small business it doesn’t matter. Ssd isn’t going to help as much as you think. What I understand is the concept of finding the maximum value for patseguin. In that quest, I have zero interest in accepting any lazyness on the part of suppliers just because they like to traditionally gouge their customers knowing full well that most of them are not knowledgeable. Again, that "Needs Assessment" that none of us get to do. A SSD will provide far less speed up if a DB is mostly reads. SSD shines brightly in write-heavy DB loads. Still, in 2019, it's not my desire to help a supplier make more profit by looking at "good enough" - for a consumer of a product, business or otherwise, the most value for hard earned dollars should be the objective. At least that is where I am coming from. That is my BIAS here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 Dell Config DevTech-1 $2,419 2 TB NVMe for everything (really think RAID is just not needed for this tech) 2 TB single spinner for local backup Windows Pro - needs SBS etc server upgrade via Dell Rep Additional NVMe can be added via expansion ports and adapter card Lowest video that could be selected was 1050 ti - Dell rep could probably downgrade that https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/pdr/xps-8930-desktop/cto8930w10ph150s?selectionState=eyJPQyI6ImN0bzg5MzB3MTBwaDE1MHMiLCJNb2RzIjpbeyJJZCI6MywiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiIzMkdCIn1dfSx7IklkIjo4LCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IkdWVDk2S08ifV19LHsiSWQiOjY2NiwiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiJHMEJGSkcxIn1dfV19&cartItemId= XPS Tower Special Edition Note: Dell supports their XPS line as BOTH a consumer and business product. Intel® Core™ i7-9700[9th Gen Processor Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 8-Core/8-Thread 12M Cache] Windows 10 Pro 64-bit English 32GB DDR4 at 2666MHz; up to 64GB (Additional memory sold separately) 2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM 3.5" SATA HDD (Storage) NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GDDR5 Tray Load DVD-RW Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD) 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1 Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Network and IO Card 1 Year Hardware Service with Onsite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 I was able to get a raid 6 config...not under 5 but at 6100.... take a look, again you will have to build and check with your rep to get pricing better. Manufacturer "laziness" aside, a current setup regardless of how "old" it is will be supported by the manufacturer for the warranty time specified 3 years, 5years, etc and can be extended beyond that in almost every case. So squeezing every bit of current technology performance isn't something that I worry about as much as having a business continue to run for the time frame a warranty can be bought for. Essentially if you aren't going to offer up support for the system, don't suggest something outside of what can be offered. I can build a crazy fast system, as good or better than you possibly could....I won't support him when it fails and I do expect some hardware to fail at some point whether there be environmental damage outside of our control (flooded office, lightening hit, etc) and I won't be a phone call away with parts on standby ready to ship nor will I be a one stop shop for all of his problems in relation to this server purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 Dell Config DevTech-2 $5,884 So, Precision same as server = really fight with the bewildering config CPU is 10 cores Empty 2nd CPU socket for upgrade 48 gigs is the smallest RAM which gives you the PROPER 6-way RAM for modern Xeon in LGA 3647 sockets - this can be downgraded if 2 way RAM in a 6-way socket system won't wake you screaming most nights "What have I done?" Note: all configs so far to patseguin have NOT been 6-way RAM I suspect that some people holding out for RETRO SPINNING THINGS are attracted to those cute looking levers on the front where you can pull out a drive so in this config we give you cute little levers on the front to pull out NVMe drives! If you want the server O/S then Dell Rep needed to change that Selected lowest NVIDIA card - Dell rep can probably downgrade but stay with NVIDIA I forgot to add a spinning backup drive but there is 9 more slots to stuff in just about anything I added Thunderbolt 3 to ALL configs so far to permit super easy to add external fast drives down the road. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/desktop-and-all-in-one-pcs/precision-7920-tower/spd/precision-7920-workstation/xctopt7920us Precision 7920 Tower Chassis (BC_PCIe) Intel Xeon Silver 4114 2.2GHz, 3.0GHz Turbo, 10C, 9.6GT/s 2UPI, 14MB Cache, HT (85W) DDR4-2400 Windows 10 Pro for Workstations (4 Cores Plus) Multi - English, French, Spanish Quadro P620, 2GB, 4 mDP to DP adapter (PWS 5820,7x20T) 48GB 6x8GB DDR4 2666MHz RDIMM ECC Intel NVMe PCIe SSD (Front PCIe FlexBay) Intel Integrated controller (RST-e) with 1-2 Front FlexBay NVMe Drives M.2 2TB PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive M.2 2TB PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive Thunderbolt 3 PCIe card - 2 Type C Ports, 1 DP in 3 Years Hardware Warranty with Onsite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted June 13, 2019 Veteran Share Posted June 13, 2019 essentially a precision desktop is a server...and usually gets overlooked as being one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 I have to run out for 8 hours or so... So the daunting task of poking through various Dell server configs will have to get completed after that. Currently, we are both looking into 100% Dell configs per @patseguincurrent focus. EDIT: in a hurry to leave, this post came across stupidly nasty - I removed that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 13, 2019 Share Posted June 13, 2019 5 minutes ago, sc302 said: essentially a precision desktop is a server...and usually gets overlooked as being one. Well for a server config, the GPU is like a "special Tax" but on the other hand, so far the prices seem a shade lower than full server, and the selection of quality options better, along with more advanced hardware like those "Hot Swap" NVMe plug-ins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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