June 4, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Greetings!
I am purchasing a new/first server and could use some help with the details.
I am purchasing the server with the intent of managing a large database that will be quite extensive and requires a good amount of processing power. I have decided to go with windows server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 as a database. Within next year I hope to have this database directly flowing to a website that I could possibly be hosting as well as 2-3 offsite employess logging into the system remotely.
I would say my biggest question is whether or not to choose the raid 1 configuration or the raid 5. I want to be able to have the Hard drives mirror eachother. I was thinking of going with three hard drives but im not really sure if I would even need that setup. With that, I will just show my current system:
Dell poweredge 1800
3.0 ghz xeon
2 gb memory
sata 1 raid
cerc 6-Channel sata raid controller
160 gb hd x 2
onboard NIC network adapter
Im going price savvy on this one so no ups redundant, power supplies, or tape backup. Although I am open to any suggestions.
Definately appreciate any help with this as I have been hard pressed to find some quality reseller help. They just want to throw the biggest and baddest thing at me.
Thanks!
-Shawn
June 6, 2006 at 6:18 am
Shawn,
You're actually more knowledgeable than you might give yourself credit. Your current config is pretty good, so anything above this would be all the better. You could make a career of engineering the best hardware for SQL Server, so don't beat yourself up. I've been trying to determine the same for myself for years, and it just doesn't fall from the sky. Hopefully others will give you some advice.
I will tell you this - DO buy the UPS! It's the cheapest piece of insurance you can buy, and they have saved my behind plenty of times. The other items are not needed as long as you have good backups and can afford downtime to recover.
I recommend that you read up a bit on the RAID configurations.
When you get around to backups, look at the disk to disk backup devices: faster, cheaper, more reliable and much more storage than tape. I recently installed StorCase units.
I will also tell you that properly tuned and configured indexes beat all the hardware ten to one.
Mike
June 6, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Thanks Mike...I appreciate the advice!
-Shawn
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