Need some critique of my server configs for 3,5&7 year expansion

[KenE]

So after 8 (now going on 9) years it's time to look to put our SBS 2003/2003 servers to pasture.

Our current setup is:
ABQ - SBS 2003 dual Xeon (2ghz) 4GB ram
2U supermicro with 3ware 5 disk raid 5 (250gb disks sata 7200)
file and print serving (3 users) & DFS (Currently we have about 200GB of data in ABQ)
Exchange got kicked up to the cloud 6 months ago.
Connected via VLAN (ciscos) to
HOU - Server 2003 Standard Xeon 3050 (woodcrest!) 3GB ram
tower server 3ware RAID 5 (4 500GB disks sata 7200)
file and print serving - 1 user (me) & DFS (I keep 370 GB of data on this end)
(I currently do A LOT of GIS work off of this server (so much so I was running infiniband cards between the server and my workstation)
This is what I've spec'ed for servers for us for the next 3, 5 & 7 years (based on cost mostly)
We won't go past 10 employees total (if so I will add more resources)

3 yr boxes
ABQ
1U Server
E3-1230v2
16 GB ram
4 x 500GB (RE4) sata RAID 10 (intel rst)
SBS 2012 essentials
Hou
Tower
E3-1230v2
16 GB ram
4 x 500GB (RE4) sata RAID 10 (intel rst)
server 2012 foundation
5 yr boxes
ABQ
2U Server
E3-1230v2
16 GB ram
2 SSD (128GB) RAID 1 OS
4 x 1TB (RE4) sata RAID 10 (intel rst)
SBS 2012 essentials
Hou
2U or 4U tower
E3-1230v2
16 GB ram
2 SSD (128GB) RAID 1 OS
4 x 1 TB (RE4) sata RAID 10 (intel rst)
server 2012 foundation
7 yr boxes
ABQ
2U Server
E3-1270v2
16 GB ram
2 SSD (128GB) RAID 1 OS
100GB LSI NytroRAID card
4 x 1TB SAS RAID 10
SBS 2012 essentials
Hou
2U or Tower
E3-1270v2
16 GB ram
2 SSD (128GB) RAID 1 OS
100GB LSI NytroRAID card
4 x 1TB SAS RAID 10
server 2012 standard

Any thoughts on these setups, enough storage sas vs sata? Lord willing, and nothing fails on us, we will be migrating sometime this summer.
We are big believers in buying quality equipment that last a good while. Since we are an engineering firm I don't see us getting up into the 'cloud' anytime soon (data is too large) and file servers are going to be our critical assets for the foreseeable future.

Thanks,
Ken

 

[Biren78]

Haswell Xeon E3 V3 will be early fall from what I hear. Why do a towr for ABQ? Why not rackmount? Is this office or DC? Any other palnned uses?

We can barely plan 3 yrs out. Kudos on this.

 

[KenE]

I don't have a rack here in Houston, just a desk. No other plans for the servers unless ESRI or Autodesk do something amazing on the server side that makes life easier (HAHAHA) sorry these guys can't keep our workstations from crashing regularly!

 

[Mike]

From the looks of it the most important thing is reliability? In that case i would make sure the storage area is sound with a fast recovery from backups. For these cases i wouldnt wait for haswell in q2 with bugs, hardware and volume issues in mind but that's just me.

 

[Patrick]

Ken, somehow I missed this. The only other thought is to look at 32GB of RAM in those, especially if building for that time period.

 

[Lost-Benji]

I don't quite get what you getting at with the 3, 5 and 7 year idea.... If it what I thin k it is and your spit-balling options then I would suggest standard platform in both sites, don't waste time with 3 year systems, leave that to the knuckle-heads using desktop gear trying to be a server.

A pair of mirrored SSD's (Intel) and 4x SATA HDD's in RAID-10, all on the IRST chip-set. This means easy board swaps if needed, and easy of data recovery. These also now support the TRIM command pass-through for the SSD's.

As for Host OS, again, standardize your platforms. Also look at virtualization with Hyper-V. Fill the system with heaps of RAM and maintain correct memory channel operation. I am kind of over vendors who make systems running s2011 processors with 1 or 3 DIMMs.