Home Forums Discussions General Discussion suggestions on new network...couple of questions

Our practice has recently purchased a standalone building and I'm looking at upgrading our entire network. I'm looking for suggestions on some of our hardware as I've essentially pieced together our current network over the last 5 years and would like a clean slate. I will have the opportunity to set up the new system in the building about a week or so before we complete the move.

Current:

-HP ML110 (P4/2G Ram/2x36GB Mirrored)
-SBS 2003 R2
-Netgear FVG318
-Netgear GS524T
-Buffalo 2TB NAS
-10 XP Pro Workstations
-3 Wireless Laptops
-Networked prescription printer (Star tsp800rx)
-2 Networked printers

Planned

-HP ML350 G5 (Xeon/6G Ram/3x36GB)..purchased already
-SBS 2008 Premium
-Undecided Wireless AP/Firewall
-Undecided Gigabit Switch
-Buffalo 2TB NAS
-10 Win 7 Pro Workstations
-3 Wireless Laptops
-Networked prescription printer (Star tsp800rx)
-2 Networked printers

I know that the beefier server specs should improve AC's performance/access speeds across the board (it'd better! ), I'm just uncertain on some of the ancillary items and whether or not they'll benefit my practice.

1) With regard to the new server, we'll be trying to actually use exchange. Is it possible to demote our current server to a member box solely to run exchange and perhaps as a backup? I thought there could only be one SBS server per domain, so I'm assuming I'd have to run a different OS..

2) I'm tired of fighting viruses and spam all over our network, so I'm considering a network security appliance--but I have no experience with these things (setup OR admin). Are these things overkill if I get a more robust firewall?

3) What is the recommended amount of RAM for those of us who run servers for AC? I know the 2G we have now is pretty slow, and the new server is PC2-5300 and it maxes out at 16GB.

4) The drives that the ML350 has are 36.4GB 15k RPM SAS Hot-Swappable drives. I currently have three of these, and the capacity is 6. What would be the best configuration with regards to RAID and access speeds?

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, my goal is to improve our network hardware efficiency specifically relating to amazing charts. We have a massive database with approaching 10 thousand patients, so speed has become a huge issue with the amount of data we hold.

Royce,

First, let me say I am not a network specialist, and you would get many different answers from different people and, hopefully, you will. But, I will give you my opinions. It helps that I used the ML 110 and the SBS 2003 and the Buffalo NAS and even the XP Pros plus SBS 2008 so I have a little experience with these.

6GB of RAM should be plenty. SQL will be the biggest user of the RAM and since you have 64-bit, you may want to go up to 8 or 12. But, 6GB of RAM should be fine. I actually ran a server with 1GB of RAM once. Scary.

I would question your choice of hard drives given how cheap they are now. Haven't priced them at 15,000, but I can't see how you will use an odd number without using some of the more uncommon RAIDs. (or use RAID5) Given that most IT people would suggest either RAID 1, 5, 10 or 0 + 1, you will be limited to only RAID5. Even if you used one hard drive for a hot swap or hot spare, you will certainly be unhappy. Your only option that would make sense would be to use the 3 drives in a RAID5, which would give you 72GB of usable space. A RAID1 which would use only two of the drives would give you only 36GB of space, and you will run out of room after one week. Especially with SharePoint and WSUS, etc. I would say 80GBs minimum for your system partition and if you can go double that, even better. I would at the very least get an even number of disks. I am assuming you are using RAID. If not you are right back to 36GBs for the system drive and 36GBs for data, neither of which are ideal. If you want to keep the 3 you have, then I would suggest using the RAID controller to set them up in a RAID5 for data which 72GBs would be fine. You could always add more. Then, why not get two 120GB drives and mirror them, giving you plenty of space for your system drive.

As far as the switch, I doubt an expensive Linksys managed switch with PoE which was VoIP ready but then never used the VoIP, so I spent way too much money. Linksys, which is Cisco now anyway, makes a good switch. Some argue against managed, but I like a managed switch. Just the other day, I went into it and noticed one of my computers was at 10Mbs. I then changed the NIC settings, and it was back to 1Gb.

Like the Buffalo. Can't argue with the workstations. The Star 800 printer is beyond compare. Printers should always be networked. Very nice.

I'm not too sure you will see a huge difference, but the RAM will certainly allow SQL to work better. The overall improvement in the ML350 G5 will, give you better I/O. One thing to remember is you are not only running AC but other software. I think you will be happy.

As far as a firewall, I can only recommend Cisco. I still have the PIX-501. I believe that is discontinued now. I think the 506e is still available. The ASA 5500 series is what Cisco is going with now. I would definitely get a service contract for at least the first year. The ASA's also work with SPAM, malware, viruses, etc. As far as things like Barracuda, I have never used them, and I know they are pricey. I love Cisco, but that is just I.

If it maxes out at 16GBs, then I would go with 16GBs. I doubt you will need that much, nor will you likely notice a huge improvement, if any, if AC's performance. I have 20GBs, but then I love toys.

Personally I wouldn't get all bogged down with access speeds and the fact that RAID1 has slower write but faster read times, etc. Again, as mentioned above, three drives are not optimal for a RAID setup. I would recommend buying at least a fourth drive. If you bought the same size drive, you would have two options that I think are feasible. You could set up a RAID 5, giving you 108GB of space or you could set up a RAID10 and get 72GBs. You could also set up two mirrors without striping and have two virtual drives instead of the one RAID10.

You could also buy a 5th drive, and set up a RAID10 with a hot spare which is better than a hot swappable drive if your RAID controller supported it. Still 72GBs. You could set up six drives as a RAID10 and get 108GBs and have another drive for the hot swappable. Finally, you could go RAID5 with five drives and a hot spare or six drives all in the RAID. In all the RAID5s it would by Total# of drives minus one drive times the size of the drive for total space. With the RAID1 or 10 it is simply half the amount. There are so many things you could do. You could do a RAID1 for your OS and a RAID5 with either three or four drives either leaving one bay open or adding a hot spare. A hot spare is nice, because if you lose a drive it pops in instantaneously, then you swap in a good drive for the hot spare. No matter what you need more drive space.

Personally, I would put redundancy over speed and efficiency. You have the backup with the NAS, but you also need more space and a good RAID. Remember, RAID5 is cheaper, but RAID10 will give you the most redundancy.

I probably got a little out of control with the RAID. I would be more than happy to go over it with you. You first have to ask yourself how much space do I want for my OS and how much for my data. And, it is imperative that you have at least a partition for your OS and a separate one for your data. Personally, I like to have at least four partitions, one for OS, one for data, one for installs (key) and one for temporary backups especially with backup programs which allow two backups to be made at the same time, e.g. Backup Assist or Acronis. Microsoft still hasn't come up with a good backup program.

Bert-

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I actually didn't realize SQL ate up that much ram, like I said we're running with 2gb now in the 2003 SBS box and it crawls. Looking at the resource monitor for it, the RAM usage is consistently pegged.

Regarding the HDD, I do plan on running RAID--this time RAID5. The 50% overhead using RAID1 is just too costly. I will most likely take your advice with the RAID 5 setup, I found a great deal just now on those 36G 15k HDDs and bought 3 more for a total of 6. That'd give me about 153GB usable space which should be fine for the OS and AC. I'll have to re-read some of the other options that you proposed, I have no experience with having a raid array for an OS and another for data.

With 6 drives now I suppose I could use 2 or 3 for the OS (RAID1 or 5) and 3 or 4 for the data (RAID5), hopefully the built-in controller can handle that configuration.

I have many parts en route to me now and I'm going to play around with SBS 08 and the RAID configs for a while. It doesn't need to go live until June, but I'd like to have all the annoyances that always pop up ironed out.

Thanks again for the help!

I think given the 36GB drives, your only option is to do either a 5 drive RAID with a hot spare or a 6 drive RAID with a hot swappable, which would give approximately 170 to 180GBs of drive space.

Your other possibility is a RAID10, which will give you very good redundancy at the expense of space leaving you about 108GBs of space.

I'm redesigning some of my network and have everything set up as virtual machines on a test server. SBS 2008 and an XP client behind a virtual Vyatta router all on a Dell 2900 with 5x73GB SAS RAID, dual quad core Xeon processors. Everything works, even MS Exchange. My next step is to set up Openfiler for an iSCSI storage solution. Eventually, my network will never go down. NEVER EVER. Not that I'm getting carried away or anything.

Ha, a little confidence never hurt anyone. So you're testing your new config on virtual machines currently? I'm guessing that your running a RAID5 with the OS and Data on the same volume. iSCSI is brand new to me, I stopped paying attention for about a year and a half and I might as well not know anything these days