Advantages of getting a real Server ...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Jason, Mar 12, 2008.

  1. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    I have been thinking of getting a real server for when my new partner comes .. say June 2008 ? July ?

    I want everything to run smoothly when he gets here.

    I will be adding clients ... so I want to minimize downtime.

    What if I just bought something like this ... for testing purposes ..



    Concerns .... would I lose my ability to have a mapped folder on the server ?

    As it is now, all my PCs share a directory on my "server" PC, called S: drive (documents) and R: drive - applications (files to install applications).



    What advantages would there be ?



    Maybe buying a Windows 2003 machine is a better idea.



    I guess the advantages and disadvantages would fall into two categories

    - synapse related

    - other software related.



    ideas ?

  2. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    I personally don't think it's a good idea to buy such old equipment ( the PIII ) for mission critical apps. The drives will be old, and who knows how long the capacitors etc will last. Even if it's for testing , you will still own a piece of ancient equipment that will be hard to dispose of. Most of those servers are quite large as well.

    I'd want to run a virtual server so that I can easily restore if the hardware dies and I need to restore my backups to a new architecture. So, I'd go for a grunty PC in the first place.



  3. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    The PIII was just to play with a real server atmosphere. Migrating to a Virtual Server ... interesting thought.

    I did find the virtual server to be stable !

  4. qilin

    qilin Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    I use a PowerEdge SC440 with windows 2003 server, two 160g HD software RAID. Probably overkill for Synpase, but with peace of mind. How does a virtual server work?
  5. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    I'd say that hardware raid is preferable to software raid, so not overkill yet!

    On my HP server I have ubuntu linux installed, and then vmware server. This allows me to setup a virtual PC running windows 2003 with the original license on the HP server. To backup the virtual server I can just copy the few files that constitute the virtual server.
  6. qilin

    qilin Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    Cool, should try the same some day.
  7. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    I need some Server Version of Windows or a SAMBA connection to a NIX box as I am too frequently getting

    "Too many connections ... can't connect". Windows XP only allows 10 connections :(

    What would Dual GB NIC cards do for me ?







  8. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    What's a good system to run virtual servers ?


    What are the specs of your server ?
  9. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    I am using an old box, an HP Vectra with 2Gb of ECC ram, P4 2.4Ghz, and a few SCSI drives.

    On this I run Ubuntu desktop, with VMware server installed. And I run a number of different VMs include Windows 2003.

  10. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    My Windows 2003 Server is running smoothly, but certainly isn't faster than Windows XP for file transfers.
  11. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Re: Advantages of getting a real Server ...

    Is the NIC faster?

    Is the processor faster?

    have you upgraded your network?

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