hearkening back to 2003...

[RussianBlue]

While this isn't a true "mod post" per se, it might end up being one, and I wasnt' sure where to put it. I was looking for some suggestions on upgrading my (very small) company's server and need to tap you guys' historical knowledge regarding this somewhat dated equipment.

Currently we have 5 users on the following machine:

Dell PowerEdge 600SC
P4 2.4GHZ
2GB RAM
4x80GB WD Special Edition drives in a bastardized RAID 0+1 array.
All 4 drives are on a CERC 100 controller.
OS is SBS 2003 Premium with Exchange, SQL and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Exchange is the biggest hog/resource consumer, but still performs fine.

This upgrade needs to be as cost effective as possible, given the 'management', my partner, doesn't see the need for upgrading something that seems to work perfectly to him.

I'm scared as hell that the CERC array is gonna give us problems sooner or later with those desktop drives in there. Also, we really need to get the Exchange db's and Transaction files on 2 seperate PHYSICAL drives, which pretty much standard issue.

For the storage upgrade, I was thinking a SAS/SATA setup might work, but I've never used a SAS/SATA setup and can't tell from the pictures how everything hooks up. Does SAS/SATA effectively you the ability to use a single controller for both SCSI (rather, SAS) and SATA drives? That's what I assumed and hope.

Take the following card for example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816118030

Am I able to directly attach 2 SAS drives and 2 SATA drives? If so, where do the SATA drives attach? Are those standard SATA ports on this card? Kinda hard to tell.

My tentative plan is to put the OS and Program Files on the SAS drives RAID 1 and bulk storage would be a couple of nicely performing 250-300GB SATA drives in RAID 1. This would give us enough storage for probably the next 5 years. I can currently backup EVERYTHING here on a single REV 35 disk.

Next would be the CPU upgrade and is another place I need some help. I can't remember if the newer P4 processors are backward compatible to the 533 mhz FSB on this machine. Regardless, if we could bump it up to 3.0 or so from 2.4 and add some of that newfangled "Hyperthreading" technology, that certainly would be nice!

Here are the current CPU specs from Dell Open Manage:

Processor Manufacturer Intel
Processor Family Intel Pentium 4
Processor Version Model 2 Stepping 7
Current Speed 2400 MHz
Maximum Speed 3200 MHz (I always thought this was interesting)
External Clock Speed 533 MHz
Voltage 1500 mV

I realize this setup ain't gonna be the fastest thing out there, but I believe it will help things out a bunch, given the pathetic performance of the CERC card. Shoot, if I can get 40 MB/sec transfer rates on either/both of these arrays, we'll be doing WAY better than the current setup. The goal here is a 30% to 40% performance upgrade for approximately $1000 or less, which we should be able to get done with a setup like this.

I was thinking
(2) 10k, 36GB SAS drives for around $350
$300 for the controller
$250 for the SATA disks
$100 for an ebay CPU

I'd love to hear suggestions, guidance.

Thanks so much.

[n-sanity]

Well.. i guess no one else will do this, so ima brave this thread :D If u still need the braving...

Ima look at it this way.

Sell the mothaf'ng cpu, mobo, card, and ram - u should get in the vicinity of 400 bucks for all that.

Buy a PD 805 for the money, and a nice board with onboard sata raid. I havent seen a board yet that doesnt have this so u shouldnt have a problem there. That should eat up the 400 bucks right there. If ur not even going to approach the question of bumping that 3.6ghz capable cpu to 2.4 or 2.8, then go ahead and spend on a 915 - the new ones with viiv or watever it is. Less then 250 i hear.

Next, buy a good pair of 10k rpm 36gb sata raptors - i literally just picked up mine for 55 cad with local pickup, about 3 hours ago, and am running this firefox window from that exact drive. So, MAX you'd spend 150 on em. Obviously raid those suckers... and then buy 2 250gb or 2 400gbs from fry's for 100 each - thats 800gb for 200 bucks SHIPPED. If you don't want desktop toys, go ahead and spend some greenbacks on a pair of enterprise hdd's. I personally can't quite see a difference. Of course raid them too.

Now lets see... we've got ourselves an uber upgrade, with incredible expandability for the future, 800gb worth of storage, vs 240gb (and since those 400's are 16mb cache with ncq of course u have urself almost the performance of those 4 80's XD), and of course 70 gigs of wholesome raided raptorness :D Of course, all for just less the 300 bucks. And then of course u can tell him that this cost this much and this cost this much and that u need 700 bucks and make some cash on the side, no? Speaking like the russian i am, that would be the most obvious thing to do for me.