What kind of server do you sell?

[TAPtech]

You're welcome! For the TS440, I would only recommend it above the TS140 if you need more than 4 drives. The only real advantages to it, in my eyes, are the dual PSU's, 8 hot swap bays, and RAID controller options. RAID is by LSI and is certainly pretty dang good. I was quite impressed with the RAID500 level speed with dual RAID 1 arrays, considering the low price.

Be warned though... Unless I'm doing it wrong... when one of the PSU's dies you will not know about it. There's a little green light on the back and that's about it. The TS440 only has Intel AMT, no board level management. TBH, I was really surprised when I found that out. Quite a stumbling block for the TS line, I would say. Otherwise they perform great. Haven't had them deployed long enough to comment on reliability.

 

[Jmage]

Just installed the 2nd PSU and the Hard Drives in it. Server 2012 R2 Essential is installing right now.

The Chassis seems very nice, the drive bay too, the Power supply are ACBell wich I think it's decent. The downside in this server is the main board. It looks cheap, but that means nothing. Also the onboard controller is Intel RST wich is good because I'm used to it in many other small servers.

The hard drives I received where 2x500GB WDC RE4 and 2x2TB Seagate Constellation. Pretty happy with that.

I ordered another 4gigs ECC for 8gigs memory. The 2nd stick isn't the same as the 1st, I don't like that but hey it works!

Overall, pretty satisfied for the cost. I would have put a bigger motherboard because it looks tiny in this chassis, but it's not like anyone else will see it. Also it's pretty quiet!

Feeling confident to sell them now, but next time I'll put a raid controller instead of the onboard one.

 

[TAPtech]

Also, I hope you're getting this stuff through a distributor! I don't think the hard drive and caddy's are too expensive. If you are able to sign your client up under Lenovo NCB, the HDD's get very large discounts. Set up the Intel AMT management so you can view very basic info if you need to. Lenovo doesn't offer a system management application for these servers. (Have I mentioned that yet???)

Don't feel bad about the RAID controller. A good RAID controller would probably be money wasted on this type of system. Like a Honda Civic with Bentley leather seats.

 

[Jmage]

Yes I get everything from authorised Distributors. I'm an authorised Lenovo reseller and my rep come by from time to time to my office telling me about all the promotions and yeah I got the NCB discount wich is really awesome!

By the look of the board, It's no surprise it doesn't have much to it. But for small clients like the one who will get it, it will be perfect.

Technibble is really a good place to be a Tech!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I ordered another 4gigs ECC for 8gigs memory. The 2nd stick isn't the same as the 1st, I don't like that but hey it works!.

RAM is so cheap..don't skimp.
8 gigs was sorta OK for Server 08...but server 12....especially Essentials role...she'll crawl like a frozen caterpillar with just 8 gigs.

 

[Jmage]

RAM is so cheap..don't skimp.
8 gigs was sorta OK for Server 08...but server 12....especially Essentials role...she'll crawl like a frozen caterpillar with just 8 gigs.

8gigs for File Sharing is more than enough no? If possible, I won't be installing the Essentials Role. Do I really need to install this role? I only need AD/DNS/DHCP/File Sharing. As my understanding the Essential only needs to be the main DC with all the AD role.

 

[TenYardFight]

8gigs for File Sharing is more than enough no? If possible, I won't be installing the Essentials Role. Do I really need to install this role? I only need AD/DNS/DHCP/File Sharing. As my understanding the Essential only needs to be the main DC with all the AD role.

It's enough... BUT. RAM is cheap, and clients know how much RAM and storage their rigs have. Believe it or not, they actually brag to their peers about it. They don't know then difference between RAID controllers, but they know they "need xx RAM"

Then...there's my competitor. He gets my client's ear through some stroke of luck and I'll be dammed if I give him the opportunity to say the server I specced has "just enough" RAM. All over what, 200 bucks? [emoji4]

 

[Markverhyden]

I'm very much a DIY person. That being said I also recognize that the DIY solution's have limitations. This is especially true with hardware. As many have mentioned many of the major OEM's have server hardware based on quality components. Yes, they do have funky things like proprietary rails. Using minor features like that as an objection does not make sense to me. They have no meaningful impact on performance.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

8gigs for File Sharing is more than enough no? If possible, I won't be installing the Essentials Role. Do I really need to install this role? I only need AD/DNS/DHCP/File Sharing. As my understanding the Essential only needs to be the main DC with all the AD role.

You're the one that has to work on the thing. Spend some time sitting at a server with 16 or more gigs...and SAS drives, versus a server with 8 gigs...on SATA drives. When you're working on this server...typically after hours for clients, and want to get home, or want to climb into bed with your girlfriend/wife, instead of setting there watching progress bars crawwwwllllll. And for the client..an extra half hour or hour of after hours rates invoices....because it's an under spec'd server...doesn't take too long for the cost of the memory to have been worth it. RAM also helps end user experience in browsing files/folders, opening, saving. Happiness with server performance. Efficiency in work. Or..."geeze...we just got this new server..and it's kinda slow!..Why is it so slow?" More than a couple of times...I've gotten clients that went with a cheaper tech before...and complained of performance, when they put in cheaper hardware...and I've heard the compliants. And I've lost clients..temporarily..to cheaper techs....who came back to me saying "Yup, we learned you get what you pay for...you're expensive, you're products are expensive, but they're worth it!"

The Essentials role is a nice feature that clients love. The remote company portal allow them to securely and easily remote into their workstations, or...browse the Company Share folders of the server through a nice web portal interface...to work on documents on the server right through a web browser. And down the road if they move to Office 365..the integration with O365 is a great feature.

I've also seen a trend...that servers with SATA hard drives and less RAM and cheaper RAID controllers, tend to encounter more issues such as corruption. Less RAM means the hard drives work much harder since pagefile.sys is utilized a lot more. The couple of times I've seen servers go belly up..corruption...it's been cheaper servers. Sudden power loss...those basic RAID controllers can;'t handle rude shutdown...like hardware based RAID controllers with battery cache can. Client pays in the end.

Get clients to pay a bit more on good hardware...and their ROI is much better in the long run. Go cheaper early on...and they end up paying much more down the road in short time. I've learned to really stay away from caving in to a clients requests to "can you do the server cheaper?" I don't want to own those headaches...I don't want those kind of emergency calls. Nearly 20 years of doing this...I've seen time and time and time and time again ...cheap servers up front...result in big headaches. And I don't see those problems with "real server iron".

 

[Gareth | IT Zen]

I'm just reiterating what a lot of the smart people on here have said, but don't skimp out. I love tinkering too and believe in knowing products I sell inside out, but would never build my own server. If you're comparing servers based on specs like CPU support and amount of RAM they come with you're missing the point.

As an example, proper servers have out-of-band management. That's another network card and, essentially another little PC inside the server. It has a web interface and can control the server. This lets you do awesome stuff like reboot a server, watch it POST, enter the BIOS and change some settings and save. It also lets you go in and boot a server that's turned off. This can all be done over the Internet.

If the client decides to virtualise you can just download the custom version of ESXi (or whatever product you're using) that has the management agents built in. This allows you to get notified if there's a hardware problem.

The drivers are verified for server OS'es, and they're thoroughly tested.

There are lots of other similar reasons. You don't want to be the only person in the world seeing an incompatibility between a certain brand motherboard and a RAID controller (because no-one else in the world has ever tested those two products together). Good luck to you trying to convince the motherboard manufacturer to investigate that bug and put out a fix in quick time, just for you. And trying to convince the RAID controller manufacturer the same thing, since it could be their fault too.

In the server world it's just not worth it. Reliability is king. Get yourself a good brand, off-the-shelf server that's had all the components tested together. Any fun you have custom building something, or any money you save just ain't worth it when you start to have issues and the client has continuing downtime. That's a great way to lose clients.


As for brands, I only ever sell HP. I know their line-ups and software really well now so supporting them is easy (again: keeping things plain vanilla). Reliability in HP is awesome, and support is very good if you ever have a problem (parts are pre-shipped overnight, or brought out to you by a local repair tech). The only thing I don't like about HP is the premium you pay for their hard drives.

It sounds like you only need a fairly basic file server. If $$$ is an issue consider quoting an HP MicroServer. These are a bit bigger than a NAS, but have a lot of the goodies you get in a proper server like a solid RAID card, ECC RAM and even out-of-band management (HP call theirs ILo).

Dell are also very good, but I can't comment further due to very limited experience with them.

Yes - definitely avoid Fujitsu, and I'd add Acer to that list (I expect others will disagree with this but that's been my, admittedly fairly limited, experience).

 

[Jmage]

Thanks for even more good infos.

For the Ram question, the quote is already accepted and the server is now installing updates in my office. I'll see how it goes but right now the server use 1gig of ram. They really only have Excel, Word and PDF files. No database applications, nothing to install on the server itself. I'm not even sure their old server had a Gigabit NIC... So performance should be good.

Nowhere in my post I said I wanted something cheap. I chose this server according to my client budget. When I pieced my servers together it was always Intel Boad, Intel Chassis, Intel PSU, Intel Raid controller, Intel SSDs. I'm pretty sure Intel does decent server hardware, and it's not cheap compared to big brand servers.

This month I'll have to quote a server alot bigger than this one for a client wich have Exchange. You can be sure the server won't have only 8gigs of RAM nor an onboard raid controller. As I said in my first post, my question is about brands, not specs. But thanks alot for giving me your opinions.

Please continue giving me good infos and your opinions, it's really a good read!

 

[TAPtech]

8gigs for File Sharing is more than enough no? If possible, I won't be installing the Essentials Role. Do I really need to install this role? I only need AD/DNS/DHCP/File Sharing. As my understanding the Essential only needs to be the main DC with all the AD role.

I would say 8 Gigs is certainly enough. I usually just start with 16 for servers as the stuff is cheap, but installing more RAM later is easy enough too. The only thing here... If it is Server Essentials and not Server Standard with the Essentials role... you don't get to choose to install Essentials role or not, it is default install. You don't have to turn on RWA and VPN though.

Funny all the mention of clients bragging about how much RAM the systems have, it's so true. A lot of times I hear how much RAM the employees at my clients have in their gaming rigs. Wow its amazing. Then there's the guy that went from 16GB of RAM to 32GB of RAM and "didn't notice a damn difference, wtf?" Yep.

 

[Jmage]

I would say 8 Gigs is certainly enough. I usually just start with 16 for servers as the stuff is cheap, but installing more RAM later is easy enough too. The only thing here... If it is Server Essentials and not Server Standard with the Essentials role... you don't get to choose to install Essentials role or not, it is default install. You don't have to turn on RWA and VPN though.

Funny all the mention of clients bragging about how much RAM the systems have, it's so true. A lot of times I hear how much RAM the employees at my clients have in their gaming rigs. Wow its amazing. Then there's the guy that went from 16GB of RAM to 32GB of RAM and "didn't notice a damn difference, wtf?" Yep.

For Essentials, it's not really "Default". You just cancel the wizard and delete the registry key that make it run at startup. That's what you need to do to migrate from an old Domain anyway.

About clients and their RAM size. Totally true. The worst is when you suggest them to replace their 1TB hard drive that only have 50gigs of data on if for a 240gigs SSD. They think you're crazy and their system will run slower than before without all those sweet extra Gigs. Always fun to convince them they will be faster with less...