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What do you guys think about this machine?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EIH37G/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

For under $400, I'm thinking of keeping one of these as an emergency backup server.

I would treat that machine like I would the spare tire of my car. In the event of a flat, it's just good enough to get you to a service station so you can get a real tire - but nothing more.

JamesNT

seems like it has no hard drive .... and therefore no OS .... seems like a lot of work unless you like to set those up
consider buying a used one from TIGERDIRECT

Wow that's a lot of negativity. That's actually a pretty good server. It just doesn't have any hard drives. That's most likely to your advantage since OEMs like Dell and Lenvo like to charge a small fortune (nearly double) for your basic "enterprise" SATA drive.

I would consider this system like a barebones system giving you a lot of freedom for upgrades. Not to mention a lot cheaper. Lots of people find it easy to add RAM and hard drives so this is a pretty good deal.

Slap in 16GB of RAM (more or less up to you): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239102
And a couple RE4 drives (or WD Reds if you're on a budget): http://www.amazon.com/RE4-Enterpris...d=1355175093&sr=1-1&keywords=RE4
OS: You could run something like ESXi or Hyper V here and virtualize your current server as a backup

If the 1 year warranty is an issue of contention, you can purchase up to a 5 year warranty. (24/7 Pro Support and NBD Onsite for $100 for 3 years). So I don't know why it's such a bad idea.

Yes - I don't know that I'd want to deploy that in a 20-workstation environment, but I think I'll get one to keep around as an emergency spare Server, or as a test computer. I'm going to jack up the RAM to 8GB and set up the built-in RAID 1 and see how it performs in a light-duty environment.

I'm sure it will perform very well. What are the specs of your current server?

The current server: I built it almost exactly to the specs you outlined in your sticky thread. 16GB of RAM. It's working great, and I'm careful to keep it that way.

I built it so that we could have ultimate flexibility in terms of upgrade/replacement path. We recently had a Dell workstation go bad on us - turned out to be the motherboard. We essentially had to toss out a nice (XPS model) case and power supply because of the proprietary nature of the motherboard.

Excellent. This would make a great backup. I need to update that thread. Now that LGA 2011 is out, there are a lot more upgrade paths available with that socket. 8-16 RAM slots, 2 Processors (from 4 to 8 cores each with HT), several PCI-E slots. I'll probably add a few more higher categories like machines that can handle several guest VMs. Also, the new Western Digital Reds make storage a lot more affordable with all the nice "enterprise" features like TLER, etc.

The WD Reds seem to be getting favorable reviews. I stuck a couple of the 2TB variety into a Windows Home Server I built recently. But given their rotational speeds (either 5400 or 5900 rpm, I think), would they be suited to serve as primary OS drives? I dunno - maybe with 16GB of RAM, maybe the difference would be negligible for a small outfit?

Not the best OS drives. Pretty good for storage.

You could always throw on an SSD or something for the main OS.

I actually bought 2 of the Red 3TB and they perform rather well:





EDIT: WD Black Removed. User adjusted test to make it seem faster.

What do you think about using an SSD drive *just* for AC, with the OS being run off a conventional drive? Even though the OS isn't running on it, it should still provide a huge boost because the SQL Server and data are being run off it, correct?

Possibly yes. The thing is the page file is often stored on the same drive as the Operating System. Keeping the pagefile on the conventional drive will result in reduced performance compared to the SSD. I believe Bert was trying to explain to DrAC while his server sped up after a restart. They explained that it saves of GBs of pages as time goes on. That stuff that's not accessed so frequently is moved off into the page file. Hence, when someone queries it, it has to go to the page file instead of the memory. As it fills up, performance goes down. So while your database may be on an SSD. The page file is not. In the grand scheme of things, a little extra for a larger SSD isn't a big deal. I mean people often spend big bucks on the fast processor and tons of RAM, then skimp on the drives. Let's not forget that everything is replaceable including the processor, RAM, motherboard, etc. Your data is not.

Btw, there seems to be a huge influx of negative reviews on the WD Reds on newegg in the last 2 weeks. It seems suspicious, but anyway. Be careful of DOA drives. I get the feeling newegg got a bad shipment. You could always use their DLG Diag tool to check for bad sectors before you put them into production. Full format (unfortunately, often skipped) is good too.

Good call about the SSD drive. They keep getting cheaper and cheaper, so yes, there's no real good reason to not pay for extra storage, especially with a critical application like EMR.

I sometimes wonder about these reviews. If you took them at face value, you would think that 1 out of every 3 is a dud, but my experience has been more like 1 out of 10. It almost seems like the manufacturers are involved in a giant online pissing match, lol.

Took the little server for a spin yesterday after bumping it to 8GB. I really like it. Whisper quiet, even while being pushed with Prime95 (I don't know if that's a good thing). I think the Xeon 1235 is a great little CPU, regardless of application. It has all the VM goodies enabled as well - 4 cores and a total of 8 threads.

I actually think it would make for a great little workstation too, now that ECC RAM is so cheap. Pop in an SSD drive, and you would have one fast little computer.

Very cool.

I know that we discussed SBS not being able to backup to anything larger than 2TB, but it can use 3TB drives for OS and data w/o any problems?

Yes, you will need to choose GPT instead of MBR, but bear in mind that in order to back that up. You will either need to make partition sizes that are <2TB and probably use the WBAdmin tool instead of the built in console. Either that or buy some third party solution.