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I'm looking to purchase a new server. My use cases are as follows:

1.) Primary OS will be Win '08 running SQL '08 as a development server. 2.) On my current server I also run WAMP for LAMP stack development. I'd like to run Ubuntu VM's instead on this new server as WAMP doesn't always give a fair reflection of our production environment for LAMP sites (Ubuntu 10.10).

3.) I also intend to run a number of file servers on this machine so need plenty of disk space.

Does anyone have any good server spec recommendations for this kind of use case?

Thanks,

Ed

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Not nearly enough information, define "plenty". – 3molo May 19 '11 at 9:42
This is a really difficult question to answer because it is very subjective. Perhaps the best way of looking at it is what virtual platform you plan to use. If, for example, you're going to use VMWare ESXi then your choice is essentially limited to stuff that will work well with that. All the major tier server vendors will have platforms that are built with meeting that in mind. – DJ Pon3 May 19 '11 at 9:52
even though I answered below we don't do this kind of buying advice thing on this site (see our FAQ), so I've got to close the question sorry, maybe take a look at the FAQ if you get a chance. – Chopper3 May 19 '11 at 10:05
@3molo @Robert - apologies if I've been vague in my question - I'm currently using about 300GB on my current local server setup. @Robert - I'm open to different virtualisation options. – Ed Bloom May 19 '11 at 11:20
@Chopper3 - no probs - sorry I wasn't aware of the buying advice restrictions but I can understand that - thanks I really appreciate the info you've provided below - thank you. – Ed Bloom May 19 '11 at 11:21
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closed as off topic by Chopper3 May 19 '11 at 10:05

Questions on Server Fault are expected to generally relate to servers, networking, or desktop infrastructure, within the scope defined in the faq.

1 Answer

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You can't go too wrong sticking to one of the big vendors (Dell, HP, IBM etc.) but as for the specs, well you don'g give us much to go on. Typically I'd suggest getting a 2-socket server, maybe only filling it with one CPU right now to give you somewhere to go if needed, maybe stick a 6-core Xeon 56xx series chip in it, maybe 3 x 4GB or 3 x 8GB, get a hardware RAID controller and use RAID 10 or 5/6. Of course you don't mention you disk requirements but there are very good 900GB 10krpm disks out now that hit a lot of 'buttons' for me. Unless price/GB is very important to you perhaps avoid using these 1/2/3TB SATA 7.2krpm disks, they're great for nearline stuff but their performance drops off quickly under load. Other than that make sure you're using the 64-bit version of W2K8 and come back to us with more detail.

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