Topic: Hardware help

[raysmes]

Hi,

Our server is acting up an SME Server looks the way to go. Trouble is I have zero experience of buying servers...

I've found this server: HP ProLiant ML110 G6 Tower Server at http://www.ebuyer.com/product/219937

It looks OK against the recommended specs - I will need another SATA drive and another Ethernet card. For off-site back up I'll buy a USB drive.

I'll need RAID 1, should I rely on software or buy a RAID card (no experience of set up either).

Use will be as follows: Office file server 5 people. SSH remote access to files.

Any advice welcomed. If there is a good place to buy the requisite hardware in the UK at a reasonable price so that I can just plug in and install the server software those recommendations would be  most welcome too.

Hoping to move over before the current server falls over again...

[byte]

I've found this server: HP ProLiant ML110 G6 Tower Server at http://www.ebuyer.com/product/219937

Good choice I have two ML115 myself and have been very good servers since 2008 and still going strong today (touch wood )

You can always use sites like Red Hat certified list:

https://hardware.redhat.com/

It looks OK against the recommended specs - I will need another SATA drive and another Ethernet card. For off-site back up I'll buy a USB drive.

Intel network cards are one of the most compatible cards out there.

I'll need RAID 1, should I rely on software or buy a RAID card (no experience of set up either).

Software RAID will be more than fine, this is what I and many others use reliable.

Use will be as follows: Office file server 5 people. SSH remote access to files.

Good server choice for amount of users

Any advice welcomed. If there is a good place to buy the requisite hardware in the UK at a reasonable price so that I can just plug in and install the server software those recommendations would be  most welcome too.

eBuyer are good choice, also are Insight Direct

Hoping to move over before the current server falls over again...

Just make sure you have a good backup in place before it falls over

[raysmes]

Thanks. I'm still on the track of hardware for this and I had a thought....

I won't need the email capabilities, we will use the server as a file server. Would it be easier for me just to by a NAS box? SSH access from outside the office is a must though.

Again, any comments appreciated.

[idp_qbn]

Raysmes,
NAS boxes are great for backup. They are not so good as a file server.Some may be, but generally they are designed just as backup: low system memory, mediocre processor and big storage. If you can find one with a fast processor and large RAM (2Gb would be good rather than the 256MB most low-end ones seem to have) as well as Gb network rather than 10/100 Mb then you may have a solution.

File servers have a faster processor and larger RAM to deal with concurrent requests for files. The storage is expandable to whatever you want.

SME is designed as a File Server. And it provides VPN access either natively, via the server-manager or via the OpenVPN contrib.

I have struggled trying to turn a NAS into a file-server but the speed and the clumsy implementation of the software (it is firmware based) made it too difficult. Worked well enough  when there were only 2 users but died in the arse when we got up to 5 users who were processing audio files and photographs.

SME does the job brilliantly - and a second SME running AFFA means we can be back up in minutes (20 or 30) rather than hours if the server dies.

In short, NAS is not the way to go. Stick with SME.

Cheers
Ian

[nicolatiana]

Hi idp_qbn
 
Consider that ML110 G6 is not SME 7.x compatible if You leave your controller in AHCI (actually Your post does not point out which SME release You are going to install).
Furthermore 7.5.1 cd is necessary: previous releases did not detect the controller.
You can find more information about this here: http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,46011.msg224892.html#msg224892 with a link to Hp ML certified list.
 
Bye
 
Nicola