Recommended HW for small but demanding company

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Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
Usage Profile: For a company I work for. 10 users, 7 of them very little demanding, 3 use CAD and store workingfiles for this on server, and use email heavily (each of them around 60GB email in 4 years). Large attachments on email (and not possible to move this to cloud etc)

Other information… Today server is DL380P Gen8 E52620v2 32GB RAM, 2x120gb SATA SSD RAID1 and 5 pcs 300GB SAS 10K i RAID6, all from 2014. Struggle with a bit slow response on database for email (at the RAID1), and only 1GB from server to the 24p 1GB-switch. OS on server is ClearOS (RHEL), OS on clients is windows clients, XP, W7, W8 and W10.


Build’s Name: 2018 small-company server
Operating System/ Storage Platform: ClearOS / RHEL, clients is windows clients, XP, W7, W8 and W10. No virtualisation.
CPU: 2 pcs Xeon Silver 4110
Motherboard: SUPERMICRO X11DPH-TQ
Chassis: Chieftec UNC-310RL-B
Drives: 2 x 480GB Intel Optane 900P (one for system, one for mySQL database for email), 1 pcs 2TB Intel DC P4600, all 3 NVMe PCI Express.
RAM: 12 pcs (?) KSM26RS8/8HAI
Add-in Cards: None
Power Supply: Not found yet!
Other Bits: MikroTik Cloud Smart Switch CSS326-24G-2S+RM, 2 pcs 10GB copper

Usage Profile: Firewall/router/content filtering/mail&calendar Zarafa, etc.

Other information…
Disks I think use a 480GB for system, even if OS will "never" need more than 20-30GB. I belive 200GB is max realistic mail-database in future (today around 85GB and growing slowly but steady), and therefore select a 480GB disk there too. Filestorage is about 500GB today, so 2TB should do for some years.
I consider skipping RAID completely and go for PCI Express / NVMe SSDs, to get most performance for money. SSD's like these should be pretty stable, and backup is well taken care of (1 in-house, 1 out of house via external USB-disks, 1 online backup). Motherboard/CPU should be fine, very unsure of memory setup. Kingston says "MODULES MUST BE INSTALLED IN IDENTICAL GROUPS OF SIX to achieve Six Channel bandwidth. " , but I don't understand what Kingston means here. Do they mean to use total 12 pcs (8GB then, 96GB should be fine?)
Price-tag is not set, but I belive we are topping the budget with this setup. Stuff like UPS, rack, screen, we will use the same as today. Bits must be awailable in Norwegian shops like www.proshop.no
All services is to be continued as is, so mailserver is staying at the company, no Gmail/MS-solutions here.
Comments and suggestions is most welcome.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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For a dual scalable setup 8 dimms is minimum fly reasonable performance but 12 is better that way each cpu has all 6 channels populated.

Seems ok I like the approach with no morrow but I wonder if you should throw in say a 2tb SATA was that can take any role if one failed and without you even having to be onsite.
 
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Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
For a dual scalable setup 8 dimms is minimum fly reasonable performance but 12 is better that way each cpu has all 6 channels populated.

Seems ok I like the approach with no morrow but I wonder if you should throw in say a 2tb SATA was that can take any role if one failed and without you even having to be onsite.
Thanks alot for your reply Evan.
OK, so 12 then. Then I didn't think completely wrong :-D Is there any advantage to go for faster/better memory than the one I've found? 2666MHz (PC4-21300) / CL17, single rank. It is compatible according to Kingston, but thats all I know to be honest.

Yes, a "simple" 2TB disk is a good idea to have as spare, getting one for this. I've already selected a spinning disk at 5TB to have as backup/temporary/whatever disk, inside the cabinet.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Not really any point in having faster memory unless you intend to reuse it for newer or better CPU later.

I notice HPE have also been using Kingston recently but generally I have stuck to Samsung, Hynix, Micron dimms
 

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
Not really any point in having faster memory unless you intend to reuse it for newer or better CPU later.

I notice HPE have also been using Kingston recently but generally I have stuck to Samsung, Hynix, Micron dimms
Kingston was a coincidence, I'm free to select whatever. I found Samsung M393A1K43BB0-CTD at pretty much same cost, and for what I see same spec.
 

amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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I think spending extra on Optane is a waste, your performance of DB is already going to be night and day compared to spinning drives. So I would go to with another set of smaller P4600 for DB and system and put them in RAID 1. I think their performance is more than you need for system and DB even if on same drive and the raid 1 mirror gives you a lot more up-time reliability for system and DB.
 

StammesOpfer

Active Member
Mar 15, 2016
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I wouldn't dream of not using RAID in a production environment where uptime matters. Remember with a backup you have to get replacement hardware, load the backup, and hope that nothing important was lost between the last scheduled backup and the failure.
 

MiniKnight

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Mar 30, 2012
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NYC

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
Xeon Silver can only use DDR4 2400 not 2666. 2666 is only with the higher-end processors like Gold 6100

Supermicro and Kingston don't match here's someone having issues on a similar Supermicro motherboard with Kingston this week https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-gold5115-kingston-2666-stable-at-2133.22013/

Please use Samsung, Micron, Crucial, or Hynix, not Kingston and save trouble.
Wow! Thats a good find Sir. Thank You! Will select memory from the MB-recommended list, and Samsung.
 

Bent Are Fikse

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Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
To answer both amalurk and MiniKnight: Yes, I have been a RAID-guy for decades. After a intensive talk with some of my former studying guys when I studied in the early '00s, I have decided not to go for RAID anymore. One of my friends, working as hardware senior consultant at a university hospital (some 30.000 employees), all their new builds is non-RAID solutions, as they have calculated the uptime vs cost to be acceptable when using newer enterprise SSDs. I completely understand this is controversial thinking, I used some time to "accept" this. Now this demands that backup is done instantly and constantly, and this is (thanks to good fiber connections @ 200mbps) relatively easy to accommodate as all email is mirrored to a server on another location and all saved documents are backuped in real time, both locally to a internal spinning disk and to 2 separate backup-services.
Now, the Optane might be not necessary, I can use some not-so-state-of-art SSD's, the suggested P4600 is not available at lower size than 1.6 TB here, so price is quite alot higher than the 480GB Optane's. What about the SM963, could that be an alternative who is still very good regarding reliability and performance?
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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What is better than RAID (sometimes), the answer is application redundancy , ie SQL always-on replication :)
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Kind off topic but if running Windows I assume software raid kind of kills the NVMe performance ? Or is it ok in its latest version ?

It’s why I assume SAS is also still going to be used a while yet as it has hardware raid options
 

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
Kind off topic but if running Windows I assume software raid kind of kills the NVMe performance ? Or is it ok in its latest version ?

It’s why I assume SAS is also still going to be used a while yet as it has hardware raid options
Have not seen any reports stating NVMe support in software-RAID. Just a bunch saying it is workingk, but you miss the NVMe pros.
 

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
What is better than RAID (sometimes), the answer is application redundancy , ie SQL always-on replication :)
Nice find Sir! That seems to be the most solid way to "backup" a database, and AFAIK also mySQL has this ability. There is several mySQLdatabases running on a Clearos box like this, but the one who really eats juice and is critical is the mail/groupware like Kopano. Today I use the basic but wellworking feature to send all emails (in and out) to a separate location with a running emailserver. All other databases is syncronized/backed up every night. It is very limited amount of data able to disappear, but setting up a replication redundancy should be even better. Never done this in mySQL, but will definately have a look. :)
 

matkisson

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Apr 11, 2017
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Just food for though, but going off the assumption that the server is being replaced due to performance... has anyone considered upgrading the existing components? Just seeing the E5-2620v2 and 32 GB of ram, I am confident that the processor wont be able to keep up with everything and the 32GB of RAM is defunct by today's standards. From the looks of it though, the system needs to be pretty much an all around balanced machine.

2x E5-2690/2695 v2, swap the ram for 24x8GB PC3-14900R, migrate the drives to (assuming I have the right model chassis pulled up) 8x 1TB Samsung 860 Pro for general storage, and toss in a 905p like you planned.

All that aside, there really isn't much 'demand' from a systems use perspective outside of the CAD. Mail, mySQL, firewall, etc. are all low power uses in comparison. As the server has a 2620v2, I am assuming it was never meant for high-demand to begin with. [Adjust hard drive capacities as needed]
 

StammesOpfer

Active Member
Mar 15, 2016
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That seems to be the most solid way to "backup" a database
Not a backup by itself. It is redundant but deleted data is gone if that is replicated it can't be recovered. Probably realize that already, but gotta be careful, redundancy by itself is not a backup. You should have both for a production environment.
 

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
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Bergen, Norway
Not a backup by itself. It is redundant but deleted data is gone if that is replicated it can't be recovered. Probably realize that already, but gotta be careful, redundancy by itself is not a backup. You should have both for a production environment.
Of course :) Today I have triple backup, all solutions is tested/simulated, and working just fine. ;)
 

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
10
0
1
Bergen, Norway
Just food for though, but going off the assumption that the server is being replaced due to performance... has anyone considered upgrading the existing components? Just seeing the E5-2620v2 and 32 GB of ram, I am confident that the processor wont be able to keep up with everything and the 32GB of RAM is defunct by today's standards. From the looks of it though, the system needs to be pretty much an all around balanced machine.

2x E5-2690/2695 v2, swap the ram for 24x8GB PC3-14900R, migrate the drives to (assuming I have the right model chassis pulled up) 8x 1TB Samsung 860 Pro for general storage, and toss in a 905p like you planned.

All that aside, there really isn't much 'demand' from a systems use perspective outside of the CAD. Mail, mySQL, firewall, etc. are all low power uses in comparison. As the server has a 2620v2, I am assuming it was never meant for high-demand to begin with. [Adjust hard drive capacities as needed]
Now the "old" server is getting new tasks, so there goes that idea :-O Except from this, your idea is a good one, it is a good chance an upgrade like that could work just fine.
The server of today was not built for the tasks today. CPU is not really the issue here, so 2xCPU's now is probably overkill for todays tasks. But, I would like to stay somewhat futureproof.. Disk capacity and performance is an issue.
 

TLN

Active Member
Feb 26, 2016
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2x E5-2690/2695 v2, swap the ram for 24x8GB PC3-14900R, migrate the drives to (assuming I have the right model chassis pulled up) 8x 1TB Samsung 860 Pro for general storage, and toss in a 905p like you planned.
Yep, I'd use existing platform and cheaper RAM instead of going with DDR4, unless money is no object.
Optane + SSD Raid + 10Gb NIC. Install 10Gb switch, and give CAD devs a 10Gb NICs.
 

Bent Are Fikse

New Member
Sep 30, 2018
10
0
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Bergen, Norway
Yep, I'd use existing platform and cheaper RAM instead of going with DDR4, unless money is no object.
Optane + SSD Raid + 10Gb NIC. Install 10Gb switch, and give CAD devs a 10Gb NICs.
Now RAID and NVMe is not BFF (yet), I have left the RAID-idea for a while. Until someone offer a RAID-solution for NVMe-disks with full performance.