Time for a New Server

[Rich-M]

I have been convinced my old HP Proliant server with 2 Core2Duos @ 2.4 Ghz and 32Gb 667Ddr2 ram has sent my electric bill through the roof for several years now. In the summer it heats the entire room it's in and makes it tough for the AC to even work in that room so I decided I don't need that furnace any more.It will be fun getting rid of it as I cannot lift it.

This little unit weighing 18lbs vs the 89 lb barn burner with a bit of work not only will let the room cool, but it takes up less than half the space and in a 2 BR condo on a slab, every inch is necessary.

I put this in the Promotional Forum but here are the stats:
Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 70A4001MUX Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 4GB RAM 500GB HDD 5U Tower Server Desktop PC

• Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 Quad Core Processor (8M Cache, 3.2 GHz) 84W
• RAM: 4GB DDR3 1600MHz ECC RAM | Supports up to 32GB RAM (4 x DIMM Sockets)
• Hard Drive: 500GB 7200rpm Hard Disk Drive | Supports up to 4 x 3.5" Hard Drives
• Optical Drive: Slim DVD-ROM Drive Included | Operating System: NONE Included.
• 1-Year Limited Onsite Manufacturer Warranty

I am going to run it with a 240 Gb Ssd for Windows Server and a 256 Ssd for files I access and leave the 500 Gb hard drive for real storage. Add in 16 Gb Crucial 1600 ECC Ddr3 ram for $175 and I am off to the races.

I figure if it doesn't give me what I need in the cpu I can up it later as I see it takes i-3 and i-5 cpus anyway.

 

[AWS]

That looks good. I am a Proliant guy though. I've worked on many and while they are electric hogs and heaters they do run well and are wel built.

 

[Rich-M]

I could not agree more and I hate to give up on it although I had a Lenovo I bought for $97 with free freight on eBay that I ran for 8 years without a spec of trouble. It was a bit noisy though. Actually a funny story where I bought it thinking it was a desktop which is the way it was listed. When I opened it up and looked at the 15000 RPM SAS hard drives I had never even heard of and then noticed server version of Windows I couldn't believe the buy I got....I pitched my NAS drive I had been using and set it up the right way. But like I said it runs fine so I hate to pitch it but the cost of shipping it would outweigh anything I could get for it, but it is absurd to live with this thing with about 120 Gb of meaningful data on it. I am excited to try the Ssd drives though because I suspect the HP would be faster if I used standard enterprise hard drives. I was toying with the idea of running Raptor Enterprise drives at 10,000 Rpm as they are not much more money than regular enterprise drives. And of course I haven't placed the ram yet I could go to 32 Gb but am not convinced I would see any real difference.

 

[IceMan37]

Proliant all the way. I run 3 of them.

 

[Rich-M]

Well again no argument here it is rock stable but it depends what you do with them. I really do not need this huge honking thing for what I do today. It was different when I ran 3 businesses out of this. I am not hosting anything so it was really my own personal use and business that I used it for and I need to downsize. I still eats away at me that I think this thing really bit into my electric bill. Remember it has 4-146 Gb SAS 10,000 Rpm drives utilizing Raid for 587 Gb drive, 32 Gb ddr2 667 ram and 2 Xeon E5410 cpus and could probably heat the whole upper floor in my townhouse all by itself. I also have 2 new spare drives for it. I do not need the space and I am sure I can smoke that big burner with 2 Ssd drives and 16 gb 1600 Ddr3 ram and a more efficient faster cpu, but even if I only equal it and knock $50 a month off my electric bill I will be quite happy, once I figure out what to do with the antique. Unfortunately living in a town of 5,000 severely limits my ability to sell this on eBay with "pickup only" because the buyer needs to lift weights to get this out of here and I have never had any luck with Craigs List. I sell a lot on eBay and Amazon but have never sold anything on Craigs List. I have never even gotten as much as 1 call from using Craigs List.I might wind up selling all the hard drives, ram and cpu's separately as I might get more money for them individually....then hire a trucker to yank the remains out of here. It's a shame because it runs great. Hell the IBM is still here in the closet as I wasted more time trying to sell that and even with new hard drives and quadrupled the ram I couldn't give that away.

 

[Rich-M]

Hey folks I have been thinking about this server. It seems to me I can use the 500 gb hard drive for the OS because it is on all the time, and then use the two ssd drives for storage because accessing files I have 3 pcs that will access all files on the server, and that is where I want the speed. The more I think about it though I really should use the Ssd drives for OS and storage. I do have a third 128 gb Ssd I am not using now I could use for Server 2008. What does everyone think? I have a Nas with cpu and memory for backup so I have no need of Raid plus I back up the server files and data to all pc's when they are on so I really have at least 2 backups.

 

[IceMan37]

Personally I use legacy drives for data and the SSD for OS and a few critical programs (AV-process mon etc) and a few games. I believe the pure data you are not worried about access times even across the network you are only interested that it's secure and fully accessible only by you.

 

[Rich-M]

That is my question as I keep thinking where do I gain the most from the Ssd drives but as I said there is not a lot of data on this server so I can easily use both Ssd drives with no mechanical drives, my original idea. And in the long run add more Ssd drives as they are getting so cheap.

 

[Rich-M]

Well I have been up and running for a day now and I am impressed. I am impressed first of all with Server 2012 which after my initial mistake where I had a choice of Core or Gui and chose the core and booted up to nowhere, I went back and reinstalled to Gui version and it went up like a dream with no real issues at all. I was happy to see that Classic Start Menu worked on this as I did not want to deal with Metro desktop after all I had gone through trying to use Server 2008 Standard. I had failed to note the write up had said 2008 R2 to 2012 compatible vServer versions only and when I did notice that, it was too late. 2008 standard did install but I could not get many drivers up and I could not get the ethernet which is the most important so that killed me there. I even tried to add an Intel Gigabit card to replace the built in Nic but it still would not install a driver even though I had the right driver. I had gotten chipset and Video drivers to install. The main reason I wanted to use 2008 Standard is I had crossed this bridge before and did not want to install to a domain as that would have meant installing domain users to all pcs on the network which is way too much work using 2008 R2 which is really Windows 7 and Standard is Vista. I read on the internet that 2012 Standard would install to a Workgroup so that was my next goal and as I said it went up with no real issues after my stupid choice of Core version. Fortunately I had that 2012 Standard version here or that would have wasted all kinds of time not to mention being a bit "pricey".

Mapping my drives to the same drive letters avoided the need to reset all the keyboard hot keys and relocate all the stores in all my main programs so after the install which took about 30 minutes another half hour and I had everything going. Then an hour to drag "the beast" across the floor into a closet to find a temporary home for it until I figure what to do with it.

The Lenovo unit with 16 gb ram and a 256 and 240 gb Ssd drives is impressively quiet as the fans and there are 3 of them I cannot even hear and of course they are the only mechanical parts so you can't hear a thing really. Considering the HP Proliant had 4 Sas 10,000 RPM hard drives, 2 XeonQuad Core cpus and 32 gb ram, This little server is way faster too and I noticed that right away. So far I have not seen any of the occasional freezes I was seeing with Outlook or QuickBooks where I did have to close and reopen the programs due to odd failures. It didn't happen that often but sure was annoying. I am anxiously awaiting my electric bill as I can tell by the heat in the room difference that I am sure to be right in that will go down big time.

Marc at Emsisoft was delighted I contacted him for the Emsisoft Server Version and as usual provided free license for the unit as I am a reseller so that I can use that for Antimalware/Antivirus. MSE would install but would not update and the other various free Server Avs left a lot to be desired and server versions of Antivirus programs are 4-5 times what desktop versions cost. All in all this was a great move and I see no reason at all to think about 32 Gb ram. It has 4 slots so it would be no problem but I cannot imagine it being any faster.

 

[AWS]

You didn't have to do a re-install. You could have used SConfig while at the command line. Then option 12. I switch back and forth all the time. I go to GUI mode when doing what I'm doing now. When I get done I'll put it back in core mode. That's the best thing I like about 2012.

 

[Rich-M]

OMG I knew there had to be a simple way and I Googled everything I could think of when I should have just pm'd you!
I had to believe I could find a command that would take me to the Gui I'll be damned.
It too me forever to find out what version allowed Workgroup in 2012 and once again I could have just asked you.
Lesson know your resources!

 

[Rich-M]

Well now 4 days into the new server and I do note a major improvement I was not expecting. My Dell All-in-One which is right next to the server has begun to act a lot better. I sued to get a freeze-up almost every night on Outlook that would cause me to shut down and restart and just realized that has yet to happen since the change. The Outlook store is on the server.

After about running for a few hours I would also get freez-ups from several other programs such as QuickBooks 2014 where again the store is on the server and I only remember seeing that on my Win 7 desktop a few times so not nearly as often and not at all now. I did open that "furnace up and clean it out every 2 months and never found many filth when I did, but I would notice the heat going down right after and it did seem quieter.

 

[shortordercook]

Well again no argument here it is rock stable but it depends what you do with them. I really do not need this huge honking thing for what I do today. It was different when I ran 3 businesses out of this. I am not hosting anything so it was really my own personal use and business that I used it for and I need to downsize. I still eats away at me that I think this thing really bit into my electric bill. Remember it has 4-146 Gb SAS 10,000 Rpm drives utilizing Raid for 587 Gb drive, 32 Gb ddr2 667 ram and 2 Xeon E5410 cpus and could probably heat the whole upper floor in my townhouse all by itself. I also have 2 new spare drives for it. I do not need the space and I am sure I can smoke that big burner with 2 Ssd drives and 16 gb 1600 Ddr3 ram and a more efficient faster cpu, but even if I only equal it and knock $50 a month off my electric bill I will be quite happy, once I figure out what to do with the antique. Unfortunately living in a town of 5,000 severely limits my ability to sell this on eBay with "pickup only" because the buyer needs to lift weights to get this out of here and I have never had any luck with Craigs List. I sell a lot on eBay and Amazon but have never sold anything on Craigs List. I have never even gotten as much as 1 call from using Craigs List.I might wind up selling all the hard drives, ram and cpu's separately as I might get more money for them individually....then hire a trucker to yank the remains out of here. It's a shame because it runs great. Hell the IBM is still here in the closet as I wasted more time trying to sell that and even with new hard drives and quadrupled the ram I couldn't give that away.

You know, I never considered effect on my electric bill, on discussing the computer I am having built... better go and email my friend!

 

[Rich-M]

Shortordercook,
I think there is a big difference between a server with 2 Zeon quad core cpus, 32 Gb ram a 850 watt psu and 4 SAS 15000 rpm hard drive and a desktop. This server was quite capable of heating a room even in this winter whereas a desktop unlikely would come anywhere near it in usage.