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IT Advice


Stonkin

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I've been out the IT game for a long time now, my server at work is on its last legs and could do with some advice please.

 

The requirements of the server are very basic, it just holds a central network store for 4-5 users.

 

The current machine spec is:

 

HP Proliant ML 115

 

C Drive 60Gb

D Drive 1TB

 

Processor - Quad core AMD Opteron 2.2Ghz

4Gb RAM

 

OS - Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials

64 bit

 

 

I am not sure what to replace it with, what deals are about, where to go and what server OS I need to be buying with it.

 

Any assistance from those more clued up are welcome :)

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If it literally is just holding data like a hard drive you don't even need a server. A NAS or network attached storage would be enough plus it would give some redundancy for drive failures etc where as your current 1tb drive would not

 

Something like this would give you twice the space you have now with the ability to have one drive failure.

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/742675-synology-ds216j-2-bay-desktop-nas-enclosure-ds216j

 

then 2 x drives

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/390985-wd-red-2tb-3-5-sata-nas-hard-drive-wd20efrx

 

I would have recommended Qnap, but they start at around 400£ (on ebuyer at least, i didnt look elsewhere)

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How is it on its last legs, what is up with it?

 

If your looking at a complete replacement do you want tower or rackmount, for lower end stuff the cheaper tower HP and Fuji arent bad.

 

Not a fan of Dell kit.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

If it literally is just holding data like a hard drive you don't even need a server. A NAS or network attached storage would be enough plus it would give some redundancy for drive failures etc where as your current 1tb drive would not

 

:yeahthat: good call, I would recommend a QNAP unit, there are lots of models depending on price ;)

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Thanks guys, on its last legs by it is extremely slow, it keeps crashing/freezing, randomly reboots on occasion and when it needs to shut down it takes forever and likewise when powering back up it takes ages.

 

Doesn't need to be rack mountable as there is no rack at all. It's currently just a tower pc in a cupboard!

 

The network data is currently backed up with a company online and also to an attached usb drive.

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If you didnt want to spend any money and wanted to re-purpose the hardware you could install a NAS OS on it, 9 times out of 10 the reason for slowness is the crappy OS, hardware doesn't get slower with age the software gets more bloated.

 

http://www.freenas.org/

http://www.nas4free.org/

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

There is software installed on the server which runs the phone system and also active directory, network side of things. So perhaps a pc is more required than a suggested NAS unit?

 

What phone sofware are you using, AD can be emulated on most modern NAS.

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There is software installed on the server which runs the phone system and also active directory, network side of things. So perhaps a pc is more required than a suggested NAS unit?

 

so its much more than a fileserver.....

 

have you tried reinstalling windows - normally works with that piece of crap...

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Yes :)

 

But calling it a server, it is not, for its use, most desktop pc's will have more grunt than this thing

 

Well it is - the software you are running on it (windows SBS) is server grade and not optimised for desktop

 

Desktops don't necessarily need to be less "powerful" than servers.

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If it's in a cupboard have you checked for crap inside the server? Fans/heatsinks get clogged, PC overheats and reboots.....sometimes a good hoovering inside sorts it. Also have you scanned the drives for damaged sectors? If that's the case clone disk them to SSD's. Usually the clone sofware will fix/ignore the bad sectors. Also test the PSU

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Unless your server is under heavy loads a lot, the current processing power of it should be adequate.

 

Someone talked above about hardware not degrading overtime, but that is false. I would bet that most of the slowness you are experiencing is from old/outdated hard drives.

 

It's 2016, you should have an SSD to handle your operating system, as a minimum. You could buy a 60GB SSD for £30 that will fufill this.

 

Additionally, use some disk drive checkers (such as CrystalDisk) to check the health of your current hard drives. If they are in a poor state then replace them. Hard drives are cheap.

 

Complement this with a fresh install of the operating system then see how it goes.

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I agree that more RAM and an SSD disk for the OS should really help. Also agree that Windows accumulates clutter over time. You could use something like CCleaner to clean the registry, but it might not fix all the problems. SOme of the problems could be caused by poor drivers, and that's trial and error, not trivial to diagnose.

 

Test the RAM with memtest86+ - bad RAM can cause spontaneous reboots (it can cause pretty much anything).

 

In summary - if you've got a few hours to spend on it, I reckon your current hardware could be made to perform much better. But if you fancy upgrading to a newer Windws Server edition, it might be cheaper to buy a new server that already has more RAM, an SSD and a newer OS.

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My advice is..

 

If the kit is a few years old replace it..

 

Get yourselves a dell server.. / hp with warranty get some new discs with the box based on your storage needs.

 

Download server 2012 hyperv free edition.

 

Now you have two choices by converting the existing 2008 sbs server to virtual machine or build new machines with existing licencing.

 

Probably go down the lines of p2v. This way keeps existing domain and file share settings.

 

My recomendations would be to remove the ip phone software onto another box.

 

Will last u another few years and whilst u at it.. check ur backup needs.

 

 

 

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