Server Advice

[DevTech]

14 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

I'm sorry, @DevTech, but you are talking about a big industry, not a little office run by 5 people.

 

@BudMan, can you help out here?

So NVMe is what we should get for consumer computers but business computers magically do better with slow hard drives? That's just completely self-contradictory hypocrisy!

 

Bet you everyone's gaming computer doesn't have a "good enough" hard drive!

 

Same tech. Same electrons going down the wire.

 

You can't spew out complete BS just because you say it's a "Business" thing... There is no reason that 5 people deserve to be ripped off, just because they are a "small" business. To them maybe it isn't small!

 

I never said it is a vital component, just that it is a better investment right now for a computer you buy in 2019 and expect to run for 11 years like his last one... 

 

He said he likes longevity. I took that into account... It's a subjective point I am making and I respect the other options being presented, but I noticed that the Dell website is VERY WEIRD around this after going through about 15 Dell Sever configs last night for this thread. Anyone else here do that?

 

It is silly that people are putting obsolete stuff on a pedestal with a gold trophy just so they can say their hard drives spin faster or something equally stupid as a badge of entry in the social club of Luddite thinking...

 

It's an investment purchase value hardware configuration opinion that I am politely expressing, and the resentment I am getting  is crazy silly "Not Invented Here Syndrome" and frankly not fair as I point out a sad evidence of bully-like behavior on the part of Dell and big suppliers.

 

EDIT: Also, I went to the effort to price out computers with SSD and NVMe that are in the same ballpark as the retro spinning thing configs. So what's your problem exactly? Same price, better hardware. Is there a law that says a 5 person company deserves to get ripped off and pay the same for stuff that is obsolete as soon as you drive it out of the lot?

 

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

NVME is not used to store data. NVME is ONLY beneficial when you are constantly read/write to it. Like why we use it for our OS drive.

 

Yesterday's servers are just as good as today's. Are they faster? No, but they get the job done in adequite time.

[xendrome]

OP sent you a PM, but this is what I would use in that situation with the budget at hand - https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxwrn0pz9ysxwbc/Dell - Cart.pdf?dl=0

 

I would just add on a 5th drive as a hot-spare at time of order.

 

This is a 5 year system. planning needs to be made half-way through the 4th year for replacement/migration due to hardware warranty expire and budgeting. You can typically extend the warranty on these an additional two years for around $1200, but I would believe by that time the company may have outgrown these specs.

 

$7,000 every 5 years for a profitable business to keep doing their thing is well worth it.

[DevTech]

I've done the research.

 

I've presented solid state configs that are in the same price range as spinning ones.

 

I don't think you need the complexity of RAID for NVMe but I presented a RAID-10 config on a SATA SSD scenario, again NOT MORE EXPENSIVE

 

The 15K drives will die for sure. They need the complexity of RAID for sure. Yet everyone adores them and my attempts to be rational and logical in looking at a system for the next 10 years has been like I was tearing the arms and legs off of everyone's favorite Teddy Bear.

 

So, I think I amassed a lot of useful information and there is probably no point in vexing people with more. So, I'll be happy to respond to specific questions, but please think of your Teddy Bear as being warm and safe and comfy and so on...

 

[DevTech]

5 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

NVME is not used to store data. NVME is ONLY beneficial when you are constantly read/write to it. Like why we use it for our OS drive.

 

Yesterday's servers are just as good as today's. Are they faster? No, but they get the job done in adequite time.

Yeah that is so wrong, I will leave the fundamentals to another day. But you might want to look up "Database" and wonder if you read and write to it or not...

 

Again, I proposed modern stuff that was NOT more expensive. So when you buy your next computer one of your objectives by your statement here will be to buy obsolete stuff for the same money because you don't need YOUR money as much as Dell needs to make extra profit and since you value them as a Charity Organization, you will be happy to accept "just adequate" for the same money.

 

Sorry, I can't seriously advocate that to another human being, and I haven't.

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

I'm done. If anybody wants to fight with him, be my guest....

[DevTech]

4 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

I'm done. If anybody wants to fight with him, be my guest....

Seriously, it is horrible to view an intellectual debate as a "fight"

 

The objective here is not to "win" but hopefully to arrive at insights and fundamental truths that might have been hidden until we hammer it out all in good nature...

 

The "winner" is that everyone learns stuff. Everyone knows more about stuff.

 

I have certainly learned a lot of stuff, including the obviously emotional attachment people have to those Hot Swap 15K SAS Bays! I don't work with those every day and maybe if I did, I would be very munch fonder of them...

 

And I've learned a few technical things as well!

 

Maybe if everyone listed the stuff they learned in this thread (in good faith, no sarcasm) then we can see the GOOD being achieved.

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

2 minutes ago, DevTech said:

Seriously, it is horrible to view an intellectual debate as a "fight"

  

The objective here is not to "win" but hopefully to arrive at insights and fundamental truths that might have been hidden until we hammer it out all in good nature...

 

The "winner" is that everyone learns stuff. Everyone knows more about stuff.

 

I have certainly learned a lot of stuff, including the obviously emotional attachment people have to those Hot Swap 15K SAS Bays! I don't work with those every day and maybe if I did, I would be very munch fonder of them...

 

And I've learned a few technical things as well!

 

Maybe if everyone listed the stuff they learned in this thread (in good faith, no sarcasm) then we can see the GOOD being achieved.

 

Fight may be the wrong word, umm... reason with you?

[DevTech]

2 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

Fight may be the wrong word, umm... reason with you?

ALWAYS, am I open to friendly exchanges of information, say I.

 

[sc302 Veteran]

@DevTech database performance really depends.  To say that you will absolutely see a performance increase is a bit bold.  To say you should theoretically see a performance increase is more accurate. As stated before I went from a 15000 rpm sas array to a flash array and saw no performance increase what so ever.  I cannot say that it was worth it to switch other than for the fact that the array was end of life. 

[+Matthew S. Subscriber²]

2 minutes ago, DevTech said:

ALWAYS, am I open to friendly exchanges of information, say I.

 

@DevTechI've been following this thread for awhile as well as some of your other posts... Sometimes you come off a tad bit on the hostile side...

[DevTech]

7 minutes ago, sc302 said:

@DevTech database performance really depends.  To say that you will absolutely see a performance increase is a bit bold.  To say you should theoretically see a performance increase is more accurate. As stated before I went from a 15000 rpm sas array to a flash array and saw no performance increase what so ever.  I cannot say that it was worth it to switch other than for the fact that the array was end of life. 

Right on! Sure that can happen. And it sure doesn't hurt to repeat we can't sit down with @patseguinand perform a complete Needs Assessment and measurement of his current DB setup.

 

So we do our best with general principles and hope there isn't a lot of "edge case" stuff like yours.

 

And there are so many different types of database tech for which different rules apply. Not simple.

 

I think if the cost is in the same ball park, he benefits by starting with a more modern config since he for sure does hold onto his stuff a long time. Logically he should see an employee or systemic productivity boost from the faster SSD but that can't be proven.

 

I think he is navigating the barrage of sometimes contradictory info very well and May The Force Be With Him...

 

[xendrome]

3 minutes ago, DevTech said:

And it sure doesn't hurt to repeat we can't sit down with @patseguinand perform a complete Needs Assessment and measurement of his current DB setup.

 

With 5 users and what appears to be an embroidery shop? I'm just going to venture a guess but 1: A "Needs Assessment" isn't necessary and 2: Nothing they are doing is going to cause I/O queuing on this database that they are running.

 

Sometimes simple with a good warranty is sufficient.

[DevTech]

14 minutes ago, Matthew S. said:

@DevTechI've been following this thread for awhile as well as some of your other posts... Sometimes you come off a tad bit on the hostile side...

I'm not a social person. I don't do glue words well. And smiley faces where they should be  And I zero in on the data and often go nuts on the info.

 

On the other hand people insult me like crazy and I just ignore it and try to figure out what their data points are.

 

I would not want to see harm come to a single human being on this planet, not even orange haired clowns... But my humor formed in an overdose of Monty Python and that can sure seem hostile at times if you don't have trust in the underlying purpose...

 

 

[DevTech]

3 minutes ago, xendrome said:

With 5 users and what appears to be an embroidery shop? I'm just going to venture a guess but 1: A "Needs Assessment" isn't necessary and 2: Nothing they are doing is going to cause I/O queuing on this database that they are running.

 

Sometimes simple with a good warranty is sufficient.

Yeah have you been reading the same thread?

 

That is exactly what we are discussing.

 

I think a simple SSD is VASTLY more simple than a RAID-5 15K Hot Swap SAS Bay full of drives about to die!

 

So, a simple SSD based system with a good warranty is sufficient.

 

Right? 

 

[sc302 Veteran]

6 minutes ago, DevTech said:

I'm not a social person. I don't do glue words well. And smiley faces where they should be  And I zero in on the data and often go nuts on the info.

 

On the other hand people insult me like crazy and I just ignore it and try to figure out what their data points are.

 

I would not want to see harm come to a single human being on this planet, not even orange haired clowns... But my humor formed in an overdose of Monty Python and that can sure seem hostile at times if you don't have trust in the underlying purpose...

 

 

Quite a few of us are introverts here.   I consider myself to be one.   My wife hates that I am so quiet and that text resonates with me more than verbal conversation and the fact I don’t talk at home.  I am fun to be around, the life of the party.....if everyone was dead.

 

I don’t know everything, I want to learn and I want to engage. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Just now, sc302 said:

Quite a few of us are introverts here.   I consider myself to be one.   My wife hates that I am so quiet and that text resonates with me more than verbal conversation and the fact I don’t talk at home.  I am fun to be around, the life of the party.....if everyone was dead. 

Try the morgue.... 🤣

[DevTech]

1 minute ago, Mindovermaster said:

Try the morgue.... 🤣

Thats humor and well intentioned, but he has a serious point.

 

When you live in a city of millions of people and you realize that maybe if you had a telepathic sensor you could find 10 other people if you were lucky that could sit in the same room with you and we glance at each other and everyone get's it... no words exchanged...

 

[DevTech]

16 minutes ago, sc302 said:

Quite a few of us are introverts here.   I consider myself to be one.   My wife hates that I am so quiet and that text resonates with me more than verbal conversation and the fact I don’t talk at home.  I am fun to be around, the life of the party.....if everyone was dead.

 

I don’t know everything, I want to learn and I want to engage. 

I am DEEPLY moved by your post.

 

I have noticed already that you vigorously argue your opinions but honestly and immediately learn and adapt and correct mistakes so you already had my deepest respect for that.

 

But now, I would like to add that if anything I have said seemed unfair or nasty, I am very very sorry. Please don't hesitate to point out at any time if I am disturbing you or anyone. I will be happy to learn there...or anywhere... or with green eggs and ham..there I go again...

 

[xendrome]

 

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

Yeah have you been reading the same thread?

 

That is exactly what we are discussing.

 

I think a simple SSD is VASTLY more simple than a RAID-5 15K Hot Swap SAS Bay full of drives about to die!

 

So, a simple SSD based system with a good warranty is sufficient.

 

Right? 

 

I totally disagree, this is a profit making business here. Downtime means loss of revenue and that means people can lose their jobs. I've run and migrated to/from dozens of servers with platter drives and have only had 2 failures in 15 years on Dell OEM hardware. Thank god for RAID5/10 setups, having a hot-spare available meant no downtime since I did not have to restore a backup image, had a hard drive from Dell in under 2 hours to replace the hotspare. These dell drives are enterprise level also, not consumer level.

 

Plus earlier you were talking about read/write ops on the drive and database I/O performance, if this was infact a database that would benefit from SSD for performance because of the load it was under I would be leery about using a single SSD for constant read/writes due to the wearing on the drives over a 5 year+ span, he said they had their current server for double that.

[DevTech]

20 minutes ago, xendrome said:

 

I totally disagree, this is a profit making business here. Downtime means loss of revenue and that means people can lose their jobs. I've run and migrated to/from dozens of servers with platter drives and have only had 2 failures in 15 years on Dell OEM hardware. Thank god for RAID5/10 setups, having a hot-spare available meant no downtime since I did not have to restore a backup image, had a hard drive from Dell in under 2 hours to replace the hotspare. These dell drives are enterprise level also, not consumer level.

 

Plus earlier you were talking about read/write ops on the drive and database I/O performance, if this was infact a database that would benefit from SSD for performance because of the load it was under I would be leery about using a single SSD for constant read/writes due to the wearing on the drives over a 5 year+ span, he said they had their current server for double that.

1. Your first point is moot since I configured a RAID-10 system using Dell Enterprise SSD at no more cost than the Teddy Bears.

 

2. I did in fact make a NVMe config with a single Non-RAID 1.6 TB Dell Hot Swap Enterprise NVMe SSD but that could easily be changed to a RAID-1 1 TB Dell NVMe Hot Swap SSD in a 2.5 inch carrier into the already configed 12 Bay NVMe Chassis which also has a 12 Bay normal 2.5" set. The cost might be +$200 for that. I wish I had not posted that config without RAID because everyone just jumped on this and ignored all the other good info.

 

3. I don't understand that now that Dell has developed and sells Enterprise Hot Swap NVMe drives in pluggable 2.5" carriers that it GETS NO RESPECT (Rodney Dangerfield) which I attribute to pure nostalgia for the Jet Engine whine of 15K drives. (that warm fuzzy Teddy Bear)

 

4. I have already pointed out that Dell Engineering is first class but the sales side appears complicit here in an attempt to get rid of all their Teddy Bears first before pushing the better solution.

 

 

[DevTech]

Dell Enterprise/Small Business NVMe

 

In the hope that a picture is worth a thousand words:

 

Dell PowerEdge Express Flash NVMe PCIe SSD 2.5 inch Small Form Factor User’s Guide

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/04/dell-poweredge-exp-fsh-nvme-pcie-ssd/nvmepciessdug/hot-swap?guid=guid-cad180ee-8e6e-41f5-8442-a81a222faa2f&lang=en-us

 

Technical specifications

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/04/dell-poweredge-exp-fsh-nvme-pcie-ssd/nvmepciessdug/technical-specifications?guid=guid-c3a629c4-936e-4dc8-bbef-10825da7b223&lang=en-us

 

Here it is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sc302 Veteran]

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

 

 

But now, I would like to add that if anything I have said seemed unfair or nasty, I am very very sorry. Please don't hesitate to point out at any time if I am disturbing you or anyone. I will be happy to learn there...or anywhere... or with green eggs and ham..there I go again...

 

I see it as part of having a conversation and part of having knowledge. You will defend what you know or you think you know until proven wrong.  I am ok with being wrong but need a bit more than “because I said so”.  My intentions are to have you think of a better answer because the one you gave isn’t intelligent enough.  I never look for textbook answers, if you have enough knowledge of a subject you can break down that subject well enough that a five year old can understand. If you have problems articulating yourself to that point you don’t know the subject matter enough and in my opinion should not continue. Many people on this site don’t know technology enough to be able to do that.  If I am challenging you is because I don’t understand the angle or what you are talking about.  

 

It took me a long time to understand this fact, not everyone needs the latest and greatest especially if it is out if their price range.  You have understand and be ok with that fact.  When I put a computer together for someone I want to get them the best board, memory, processor, etc..because that is what I would want...that isn’t what they want or need. You have to really listen and ask questions and find out what they really need and what they want. If it can’t come together with what they want see what they need and if you can give them a little more but don’t be afraid to give them just what they need and what he needs in this case is a system that will last, it doesn’t need to be a top performer or the fastest thing available. Prepare for failure in the system but don’t over spec. It is hard to know everything but it isn’t enterprise, it is mom and pop. Flash ssd/sas ssd is expensive.  Imo it isn’t worth the price of admission. Also spend the 40 or whatever bucks to get the chassis with the largest hot swap drives so the system can keep running if you ever have to swap a drive out (cute handle things). Storage and memory should be the main concern.  Any Xeon processor should handle whatever load he puts on it.   That is my last attempt to talk you off the edge of small business insanity. It is ok that dell and big boxes have these options.  It is ok for this type of business. It will be absolutely fine as it will be supported in the fullest extent. It is perfectly ok, it is not in your control what they do and do not offer and that too is ok.  Don’t worry about it not being the best or latest tech, it is ok that it is not.  Whatever it is will be much better than what he has. Whatever it is will have a long term or potential of long term warranty. It truly is ok. 

[DevTech]

9 minutes ago, sc302 said:

Whatever it is will have a long term or potential of long term warranty. It truly is ok. 

I'll read in detail later - gotta run out

 

Part I don't get is I "found the handles" for NVMe and config at same price

 

So whats wrong?

 

[sc302 Veteran]

3 minutes ago, DevTech said:

I'll read in detail later - gotta run out

 

Part I don't get is I "found the handles" for NVMe and config at same price

 

So whats wrong?

 

Nothing is wrong,  just saying it is ok to go with a “lesser” option.  It is simply ok. Nothing is really wrong.