Dell Poweredge R930 - Questions

[RyanH]

I have been assigned to selecting a new server for our office and although I"m not new to building computers and dealing with computer components, I am new to the world of enterprise servers. Our office has approximately 30 employees, and as of right now, there is no plan to implement VDI. The server we are looking at purchasing is a Dell Poweredge R930 with the specs listed below. Our budget is under $30,000 and the price for the servers with the following specs is $25,500.

DELL POWEREDGE R930
Operating System: WINDOWS SERVER 2012 R2 STANDARD
Processors: 4 X INTEL XEON 18 CORE PROCESSOR E7-8880V3 2.3GHZ
Memory: 48 X 16GB PC4-19200P DDR4-2400 REGISTERED ECC MEMORY
Hard Drive: 6 X SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 1TB NVMe PCI-EXPRESS 3.0 x4 SSD
Drive Bays: 2.5" Chassis with up to 16 Hard Drives and 8 PCIe SSD Drives
Raid Controller: PERC H730P 2GB CACHE RAID CONTROLLER
DRAC: IDRAC8 ENTERPRISE
Optical Drive(s): OPTICAL DRIVE INCLUDED
Power Supply: DUAL 1100W POWER SUPPLY
Networking: BROADCOM 5720 1GB QUAD PORT DAUGHTER CARD
Networking: BROADCOM 57810S CNA 10GBE + SR TRANSCEIVERS
Bezel: FRONT BEZEL
Rail Kit: RAIL KIT WITH CMA
Warranty: 5 YEAR WARRANTY

Some concerns I had were:

• For the processor, should I upgrade to the E7-8890V4 processor? It seems this processor would be a considerable jump in performance, but I'm not exactly sure.
• For the operating systems, would it be recommended to get Windows Server 2016 rather than WS 2012 R2 Standard? The pricing for Windows Server 2016 is very confusing, so not sure if this is even economical.
• Any recommendations or suggestions would be HIGHLY appreciated. The world of enterprise servers is very new to me. I know that the server above is probably overkill for our needs, but that's also sort of the point. We want to be sure that if our needs expand, that the server will be able to accommodate for it.

Thanks in advance!

Ryan

 

[i386]

I am not an expert for windows licensing, but I know that server 2016 is per core licensed. With 4x 18 core cpus server 2016 will probably cost more than the hardware.

What's your use case for such a "monster" server? Aksing becuase you have >512gb ram and 4x e7 cpus but you're listing samsung evos (consumer ssds!)

 

[NISMO1968]

Four sockets in 4U... He'd better go for 2*R730(XD).

I am not an expert for windows licensing, but I know that server 2016 is per core licensed. With 4x 18 core cpus server 2016 will probably cost more than the hardware.

What's your use case for such a "monster" server? Aksing becuase you have >512gb ram and 4x e7 cpus but you're listing samsung evos (consumer ssds!)

 

[TangoWhiskey9]

@i386 is right. 16 core WS 2016 DC is $6k. It's going to depend on your discounts but your entire server cost is going to be dominated by Microsoft licensing when you move to 2016.

It's a nice server. The Samsung SSDs are odd. You're buying a Lamborghini of servers and putting $99 for a set of 4 tires on it. Those don't have power loss protection so I didn't even think Dell would sell them with those SSDs.

You're also late in the server cycle. AMD's new server chips launch June 20 (see sth here AMD EPYC June 20, 2017, Threadripper and Vega at Computex 2017 ) and Intel's new Xeons are "this summer" so not too far away.

I know it's a game where you're always better off waiting but maybe you'll get a better deal in the coming days or weeks.

If you do buy it, it's a nice server, except those SSDs. They're essentially midrange or low end consumer SSDs.

 

[RyanH]

Thanks so much guys, I didn't expect responses so quickly! The server is being used for a law office with 34 employees who will be accessing the server for essentially data storage. I am very unfamiliar with the hardware involved with enterprise servers, so that's the reason for the SSDs. What SSD would you suggest from a performance standpoint?

What would be the advantages of Windows Server 2016 v. Windows Server 2012? I was quoted $3,300 for Windows Server 2016 with the build.

I could have them build the server with the 10 CORE PROCESSOR E7-8891V3 2.8GHZ or the 4 CORE PROCESSOR E7-8893V3 3.2GHZ, would you recommend this? It's a little confusing to me that the higher model #s would have few cores lol.

I am open to any suggestions you guys might have. For our networking hardware, we have the Meraki line of components, MX65, MS320, and MR52 just as an fyi. We are just looking to maximize the bang for our buck in any way possible.

Thank you again guys, all the input is really appreciated!!!!!!!

 

[frogtech]

This seems a bit backwards. It's hard to recommend anything when the needs are so generic. Law office with 34 employees accessing storage? Just going off that alone I'd say your needs are less "as much server as you can afford" and more on having a secure platform with redundant bulk storage and plenty of back ups. If these files are mostly just documents, pdfs, etc, you don't really need to deck it out with solid state storage. Plan for resiliency/high availability (of what sounds to be like very basic documents, albeit legal ones)and having proper back ups.

I would also decide what level of support you want. 4 hour critical same-day support increases the cost significantly, whereas prosupport & next business day on-site service is only a grand more than the included hardware warranty. You could pick up a few R730xd servers for the price of that one R930 and still have room to play. They don't need to be decked with 40 cores and 512GB of RAM for file sharing.

 

[Silvio]

I think @frogtech nailed it. Consider the use case, doesn't seems like you need something processing-heavy. Personally I would ask some key people how would they use it: documents are built in the laptop/desktop and then uploaded when final or they expect to edit it in a shared folder with multiple people, do they need documents to be searchable, need to restrict what each user can read/write, what is the impact if the server is offline, what is the maximum time they can be without it, what if the files are corrupted and gone forever. This should give you boundaries on what is important: redundancy levels, storage type (large/slow spinning disks or small/fast enterprise SSDs), network speed, processing power, etc.

My gut feeling is:

- Files are critical and cannot be lost or misplaced. Get 2 on-site servers and invest on a off-site backup solution (cloud, tape, whatever).
- Test redundancy and off-site backups at least once an year
- Take good care of who can see/edit what.
- Hate doing this being both a Linux user and loving to have my own servers but consider using Sharepoint (online via Office365 or on-premises on the server) usually works really well with Microsoft office suite if this is what you use, bonus points if you run Active Directory and Exchange (or Office365 mail) already.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[frogtech]

@Silvio - funny you mentioned sharepoint, it's the focus of my work and it was lingering in the back of my head but I really like to shy away from trying to recommend it for everything. I think it has some grounds to be utilized in this scenario, but the Enterprise licensing for it isn't cheap. Although it is significantly easier to get it off the ground with the 2016 MinRole features they added (basically a 2 server farm).

It has some pretty legit collaborative features and capabilities that I think are great for legal entities, but, then you've got to account for needing someone with the expertise to make it thrive in that environment which takes away from the OP's time to do whatever else he does.

That said I'm really in the same boat with you regarding having your own servers, the path of the O365 is really annoying and changes constantly. I always prefer having my own SP farm on the ground so I can work around whatever annoying issues are encountered. Having SharePoint in O365 though significantly reduces administrative overhead, though.