Need To Build FAST Server

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Australia
Right! Gotta build a server at work for Windows Server 2008,Main Purposes:

-File sharing
-MS SQL Databases
-Remote Desktop

It will initially be used by 6-7 People,though that will go up to about 15-20 people soon and it's gotta be FAST.

Here's what i was thinking:

Cooler Master Centurion RC-590 Mid Tower Case, 5.25"/3.5" Drive Bays, USB, IEEE1394, Audio, ATX (RC-590-KKN1)

ASUS P5BV-C ECO Quad-LAN 1P Server Board, Intel® 3200(MCH)/ CH7R, LGA775 Socket, QuadCore, 800/ 1066/ 1333 FSB, 4x Dual DDR2 667/ 800MHz DIMM, VGA, 3x PCI, 1x PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x8, SATA2, RAID 0/ 1/ 10/ 5, 2x Gigabit LAN, ATX

Intel Xeon X3330, 2.66GHz, Quad Core, Socket LGA775, 95W TDP, 1333MHz FSB, 2x3MB L2 Cache, Yorkfield, Boxed (BX80580X3330)

Team Value Ram 1GB Memory, PC2-6400 (800 MHz) DDR2, 240 Pin, 6-6-6-18-2T, CL6, Non-ECC, Un-buffered, DIMM, Lifetime Warranty (TVDD1024M800C6) -- SET OF 4

Samsung SH-S223F SATA Internal Drive, Double Layer 22x Speed DVD±RW Drive, 12x DVD-RAM 16x +R DL 12x -R DL, OEM with Nero Software Included, Black (SH-S223F)

120mm Plastic Fan Guard / Filter - SET OF 4

Cooler Master 120mm Fan, 4 in 1 (R4-S2S-124K-GP)

Hitachi UltraStar 15K300 147GB HDD, 3.5", SCSI Ultra320 80Pin, 16MB Cache, 15000rpm (0B22137)

Gigabyte ODIN 470W Power Supply, 120mm Fan (GE-P470A-C2)

Adaptec SCSI 29320ALP-R Kit, VHDCI/Ultra320, Low Profile, PCIx, Include Internal Cable (2060100-R)


This would be the setup,with the 2 Velociraptors In RAID0 With Windows Server 2008 installed,hooked up the the network via Gigabit Ethernet.

Should this do what i want FAST? Is this Overkill?


Cheers,Also i need help with Windows Server 2008.
 
I'm going to tell you right now, ditch the raptors. I think chancing the failure rate of those drives is *not* a good idea. I'd get some 1TB drives and do a decent RAID 5/6 setup.
 
We dont really need that much space,it's just Speed Where After.I just read some reviews on the VR's and they arent very reliable,i might just got with an SCSI 10k Drive or even 15k...
 
If you can get a board with SAS, I think you'd be better off with SAS drives than the Raptors, personally. That might be excessive for a server for twenty people (most of our servers are only Xeon dual-cores with 2GB RAM and we have eight hundred or so users).

Your main concern should be network speed. If it's at all possible, getting as many of the users that are going to connect to it on to a gigabit connection will probably do better for your performance.
 
Well this will be the first dedicated server i have built,so i really have no idea what specs i should be going for.

Fair enough. The only server I've ever built is Intel Atom-based, but I've drawn up the specifications for a few that our school never actually bought. What does the total cost for that server look like?
 
In case you haven't thought of it - make sure you're running that lot through a gigabit switch (preferably a managed one at that!) While most NICs are now gigabit, most switches are still restricted to 100Mbps.

However reliable the drives are, if you're storing anything at all critical on the server, you just shouldn't be using RAID 0. I know you want it to be fast, but go with something like RAID 5 and you won't be sacrificing an awful lot of speed for a heck of a lot more resilience if something goes wrong. That'd be the route I took for any server build anyway (unless it was a really large / critical one with lots of drives, where I'd go for RAID 6 for that extra safety factor.)

It is possible that you find you have specced a bit overkill though. Will all 15-20 people be using this server at once, and if so what for? Will it be a case of them simultaneously copying a few files, or simultaneously running very demanding SQL queries?
 
However reliable the drives are, if you're storing anything at all critical on the server, you just shouldn't be using RAID 0. I know you want it to be fast, but go with something like RAID 5 and you won't be sacrificing an awful lot of speed for a heck of a lot more resilience if something goes wrong. That'd be the route I took for any server build anyway (unless it was a really large / critical one with lots of drives, where I'd go for RAID 6 for that extra safety factor.)

That is the prime reason I recommended a RAID setup. You are gaining speed with RAID in the first place, and then secondly, if it's a RAID 5/6 setup, you are securing yourself also.
 
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