Server Advice: Quad Cores VS Dual Core
Discussion
Cheers for help with previous post regarding XP , I have another Quandary Now.
I'm just upgrading our p2p network to an SBS 2003 setup, primarily so can each user can run document management software, that is powered by a SQL database. We already have a 500gb Advent NAS box and will continue to use to store our bread n butter word/excel files
I then thought I'd found a suitable server through Dell:
Poweredge 1900 / dual core Xeon 5000 (3ghz) / no second processor / 2gb Ram / 3x160gb HDS in RAID5 / 2 NICs
It all came in cica £2000 including SBS operating system (+5 Cals)
I then got thinking about the complete ownership costs and lifecycle and how it would obviously be better to spend more now and also reap the performance benefits. Bearing in there will be 10-15 end users and the main job of the server will be to host a SQL database, firewall, basic sharepoint services and later Exchange:
• Is is worth going for a Quad Xeon 5320 over a Dual Xeon 5050 ( £260 price difference)
• Will I notice much difference going for 4gb over 2gb of RAM, when the cut off point for the workgroup edition of SQL (that comes with SBS PREM) is 3GB.
Apologies for the long post, its just difficult finding relevant up to date information on the net .
I'm just upgrading our p2p network to an SBS 2003 setup, primarily so can each user can run document management software, that is powered by a SQL database. We already have a 500gb Advent NAS box and will continue to use to store our bread n butter word/excel files
I then thought I'd found a suitable server through Dell:
Poweredge 1900 / dual core Xeon 5000 (3ghz) / no second processor / 2gb Ram / 3x160gb HDS in RAID5 / 2 NICs
It all came in cica £2000 including SBS operating system (+5 Cals)
I then got thinking about the complete ownership costs and lifecycle and how it would obviously be better to spend more now and also reap the performance benefits. Bearing in there will be 10-15 end users and the main job of the server will be to host a SQL database, firewall, basic sharepoint services and later Exchange:
• Is is worth going for a Quad Xeon 5320 over a Dual Xeon 5050 ( £260 price difference)
• Will I notice much difference going for 4gb over 2gb of RAM, when the cut off point for the workgroup edition of SQL (that comes with SBS PREM) is 3GB.
Apologies for the long post, its just difficult finding relevant up to date information on the net .
Cheers, pretty much decided on the 4gb of Ram as it istnt that much, plus I could upgrade it easily later if i didn't. I'm just unsure whether it is worth paying £260 for an extra core in the processor?
NAS box gets a synced full backup every evening, then data is synced off site each week
NAS box gets a synced full backup every evening, then data is synced off site each week
Edited by lilford christie on Thursday 10th May 14:33
Well the main thing there thats going to benefit from CPU is SQL - but how loaded is it going to be? A single dual-core xeon 3.0 isn't exactly to be sniffed at...
eta, here's 2x dual core xeon's w. 2GB ram running sql as the back end to an architectural package for 10-15 users, uptime 4 months -
As you can see, they're not exactly struggling... YMMV of course!!
eta, here's 2x dual core xeon's w. 2GB ram running sql as the back end to an architectural package for 10-15 users, uptime 4 months -
As you can see, they're not exactly struggling... YMMV of course!!
Edited by sneakyneil on Thursday 10th May 16:02
Cheers Neil for the screenshot , SQL is all new to me
I think I'm gonna go with one Quad Core chip, 4GB Ram, 3 x 250gb RAID5.Incuding SBS Premium R2 & an extra 10 CALs it comes to £3000 (including vat and del, plus you get a free 16 port gigabyte switch which I needed anyway)
The dificulty lies in predicting how big the buisness will grow and its needs down the line
I think I'm gonna go with one Quad Core chip, 4GB Ram, 3 x 250gb RAID5.Incuding SBS Premium R2 & an extra 10 CALs it comes to £3000 (including vat and del, plus you get a free 16 port gigabyte switch which I needed anyway)
The dificulty lies in predicting how big the buisness will grow and its needs down the line
ThePassenger said:
I'd do some reading up.
I've heard but not seen that the current batch of Quad's isn't performing as well as expected... two dual core CPU's appears to be faster.
Might be worth confirming that before splunking cash.
I've heard but not seen that the current batch of Quad's isn't performing as well as expected... two dual core CPU's appears to be faster.
Might be worth confirming that before splunking cash.
A good part of the problem is that the current quad cores are still using motherboards with the old chipset - there is a new one from intel out soon under the name Stoakley(I think) which is meant to improve things a lot.
Don't neglect Disk.
Any modern Dual/Quad core Xeon and 4GB RAM is a very capable CPU/RAM system compared with kit from 3-4 years ago (when SBS2003 was released), whereas the disk system you have described (which I assume is SATA base) is quite poor even by older standards.
SBS really thrashes disk in my experience, especially when you use SQL *and* Exchange *and* ISA caching, etc. on top of anything else it's doing.
Im my opinion a much more balanced system with less likely future bottlenecks and greater reliability would be:
1) 1 x Dual-core 3GHz Xeon - very fast as it is, and you can always add another later
2) 4GB RAM - might as well get this now as it's cheap
3) Decent hardware SAS RAID controller with battery backed write cache, 2 RAID1 disks for OS/logs and 3+ RAID5 disks for Data, all hot swappable
Any modern Dual/Quad core Xeon and 4GB RAM is a very capable CPU/RAM system compared with kit from 3-4 years ago (when SBS2003 was released), whereas the disk system you have described (which I assume is SATA base) is quite poor even by older standards.
SBS really thrashes disk in my experience, especially when you use SQL *and* Exchange *and* ISA caching, etc. on top of anything else it's doing.
Im my opinion a much more balanced system with less likely future bottlenecks and greater reliability would be:
1) 1 x Dual-core 3GHz Xeon - very fast as it is, and you can always add another later
2) 4GB RAM - might as well get this now as it's cheap
3) Decent hardware SAS RAID controller with battery backed write cache, 2 RAID1 disks for OS/logs and 3+ RAID5 disks for Data, all hot swappable
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