Choosing a used web server

searcherrr · 08-04-2009, 02:57 AM

I want to use Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition. Need Opinions.

A long time ago I used to keep up with each generation or wave of new tech CPU coming out. At some point it got to be too much trouble and I gave up on it thinking, if I buy new I'll always have the fastest. Enter USED and EBAY etc... Trying to save some money to start a new web business.

I see plenty of servers for sale and I'll just focus on a couple to start off with. HP DL380 G3's or G4's and Dell PowerEdge 2650 or 2850's.

I want RAID, etc.. but my biggest question is upgrading and is it possible. Why isn't upgrade documentation included in anything these days? I mean, what can I put in those servers as far as "the fastest CPU" goes or are they not upgradeable?

Is the DL380 G3 or G4 2 generations back? 3 gens back? 4 gens back?

Same question for the 2650 or 2850's. How far back?

I have established that these servers were fairly new in 2004-2005. I'm using a 2005 HP laptop right now that suffices just fine. It used to be that when newer faster computing power came out you could really tell a difference, but now it doesn't seem that way anymore. Seems the differences in speed/performance are fairly marginal to me.

I will be running say 10 web sites with a lot of static content and slowly over a great bit of time will incorporate database driven web sites. Would any of the aforementioned servers be good enough? Too slow? Need something more up to date?

If I slap a 1000gigabit network card in there will that keep me up to speed on the networks/internet? (as opposed to a 100 gigabit network card)?

If I only would've kept up with the generational changes in CPU's I wouldn't have to ask this stuff, but I'd appreciate any and all opinions.

Here are the links to said hardware:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/q...11473_div.HTML
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/q...12028_div.html

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...2650_specs.pdf
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...2850_specs.pdf

ChemicalAfinity · 08-05-2009, 01:19 AM

hi there

firstly, dont buy anything on ebay older than 2 years, its not really worth it.
secondly, if you buy somthing, its really not worth upgrading the cpu, and you should try to avoid upgrading ram and HDD's.

also with the ethernet cards, the place where your sites will bottleneck is at your internet gate way, there is no use having a gigabit card if you only have a 256mb connection.

other than that pretty well anything will suffice, if you go for a dell, doesnt matter which, i have got severall good dell servers off ebay, if you go for a HP DL380, they are in gen6 now, so i wouldnt go older than a gen4

let me know how you go or if you have any questions
murray

searcherrr · 08-08-2009, 05:16 AM

Hey Murray. Thanks for the response.

I feel kinda goofy now... I didn't mean 1000 gigabit. lol - Definitely meant 1000mb or 1 gigabit.

Why wouldn't you do upgrades? I've always upgraded my PCs with no problem. Is there some maintenance/management/upkeep reason why you'd not upgrade a server?

Not lower than a G4 huh. Thanks. That does actually help to know. Thats still more than 2 years though right? lol

Would a DL380 G4 hold up well with a slow starting computer business with 1 person adding sites as time goes on?

I'd be going with Comcast Business services for the data. I don't know how fast they are off hand, but good note on the bottleneck speed.

In any case I'm just looking to know about server load handling and performance for those models.

What ya think of the Dell models I mentioned? Too old?

How do the DL380's hold up & is the G4 still hefty enough for 10 static sites that'll have possibly some ads on'em etc.. Steps after that will be forums, database, and a few other small ideas. Of course eventually if I ever see CPU Utilization running consistently above 10% I'll start thinking about beefier stuff.... at which I hope about that time I'll have profit to pay for it too. :)

ChemicalAfinity · 08-09-2009, 05:53 PM

bugger, got half way through writing the reply and the page refreshed and i lost it all.... :-( from what i remember writing it was somthing like this:

the trouble with trying to upgrade a server is that they are really picky on the parts that they will let you use, it is not simply a case of picking up some old ram and throwing it in, you have to match the speed, brands, ECC technology and slot types, which is quite painfull. to me it often worked out much easier to just spend the upgrades money on a new server or buy 2 servers.

both the dell 2650's and the hp dl380's are good, i have worked on both, and i have to say i prefer the dells but thats more just personal opinon and doesnt have any technical backing. however i will say that you are much better to stick to one brand, from a business point of view, if you ever need photos it looks alot more professional to be using the same brands of pc's and servers.

the other thing on the specs of the servers is that it is probably easier to get 1 server and set it up, and then add a new one when the time comes. if you are smart then you will migrate the servers through your business, i have a remote site server atm which was our original server when we started out. you may retire your first server and then useit to host your accounting software.

i would recomend that you have all of your databases on a separate server, and have it with a bit more specs as databases are quite heavy on the processor and ram. also you should look at getting raid 5 HDD's (parity and stripped)

it could be handy from the internet speed point of view to research v'lans. you should have an external, and internal and a data vlan in your case, the external should only utilise web traffic going externally. the data would be used for communcation between servers such as the web and database. and the internal one, only used for people at your site to upload documents ot the site.

for monitoring them lookinto opmanager, they have a good free version, and you can let it notify you if the CPU or ram is consistently high etc..

think that was all i was going to write, and apologies if it was a bit disorganised, i had to write it from memory

let me know how things go
murray

**bilbus** · 08-09-2009, 11:51 PM

first off, no one upgrades OEM servers.

Just buy a 2650/2600 or a DL G3/G4.

You can get a G3 for like $200, considering what your gonna use it for makes no sence to buy a high end server.

As for nic speed, you wont have a 1gb internet connection so what will that get you?

CPU does not matter ... what ever current gen cpu you get will be just fine .. if getting a newer server.

How you gonna deal with server failures? You going to get a backup server?

What about a comcast outage? If they are down for 10 days, you got a plan?

If your serious, your best bet would be to buy 2 servers, and colo em.

08-04-2009, 02:57 AM	#1 (permalink)
searcherrr Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 4 OS: XP	Choosing a used web server I want to use Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition. Need Opinions. A long time ago I used to keep up with each generation or wave of new tech CPU coming out. At some point it got to be too much trouble and I gave up on it thinking, if I buy new I'll always have the fastest. Enter USED and EBAY etc... Trying to save some money to start a new web business. I see plenty of servers for sale and I'll just focus on a couple to start off with. HP DL380 G3's or G4's and Dell PowerEdge 2650 or 2850's. I want RAID, etc.. but my biggest question is upgrading and is it possible. Why isn't upgrade documentation included in anything these days? I mean, what can I put in those servers as far as "the fastest CPU" goes or are they not upgradeable? Is the DL380 G3 or G4 2 generations back? 3 gens back? 4 gens back? Same question for the 2650 or 2850's. How far back? I have established that these servers were fairly new in 2004-2005. I'm using a 2005 HP laptop right now that suffices just fine. It used to be that when newer faster computing power came out you could really tell a difference, but now it doesn't seem that way anymore. Seems the differences in speed/performance are fairly marginal to me. I will be running say 10 web sites with a lot of static content and slowly over a great bit of time will incorporate database driven web sites. Would any of the aforementioned servers be good enough? Too slow? Need something more up to date? If I slap a 1000gigabit network card in there will that keep me up to speed on the networks/internet? (as opposed to a 100 gigabit network card)? If I only would've kept up with the generational changes in CPU's I wouldn't have to ask this stuff, but I'd appreciate any and all opinions. Here are the links to said hardware: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/q...11473_div.HTML http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/q...12028_div.html http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...2650_specs.pdf http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...2850_specs.pdf

08-05-2009, 01:19 AM	#2 (permalink)
ChemicalAfinity Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 108 OS: Apple Mac OS X 10.5; Windows Server 2003	Re: Choosing a used web server hi there firstly, dont buy anything on ebay older than 2 years, its not really worth it. secondly, if you buy somthing, its really not worth upgrading the cpu, and you should try to avoid upgrading ram and HDD's. also with the ethernet cards, the place where your sites will bottleneck is at your internet gate way, there is no use having a gigabit card if you only have a 256mb connection. other than that pretty well anything will suffice, if you go for a dell, doesnt matter which, i have got severall good dell servers off ebay, if you go for a HP DL380, they are in gen6 now, so i wouldnt go older than a gen4 let me know how you go or if you have any questions murray

08-08-2009, 05:16 AM	#3 (permalink)
searcherrr Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 4 OS: XP	Re: Choosing a used web server Hey Murray. Thanks for the response. I feel kinda goofy now... I didn't mean 1000 gigabit. lol - Definitely meant 1000mb or 1 gigabit. Why wouldn't you do upgrades? I've always upgraded my PCs with no problem. Is there some maintenance/management/upkeep reason why you'd not upgrade a server? Not lower than a G4 huh. Thanks. That does actually help to know. Thats still more than 2 years though right? lol Would a DL380 G4 hold up well with a slow starting computer business with 1 person adding sites as time goes on? I'd be going with Comcast Business services for the data. I don't know how fast they are off hand, but good note on the bottleneck speed. In any case I'm just looking to know about server load handling and performance for those models. What ya think of the Dell models I mentioned? Too old? How do the DL380's hold up & is the G4 still hefty enough for 10 static sites that'll have possibly some ads on'em etc.. Steps after that will be forums, database, and a few other small ideas. Of course eventually if I ever see CPU Utilization running consistently above 10% I'll start thinking about beefier stuff.... at which I hope about that time I'll have profit to pay for it too. :)

08-09-2009, 05:53 PM	#4 (permalink)
ChemicalAfinity Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 108 OS: Apple Mac OS X 10.5; Windows Server 2003	Re: Choosing a used web server bugger, got half way through writing the reply and the page refreshed and i lost it all.... :-( from what i remember writing it was somthing like this: the trouble with trying to upgrade a server is that they are really picky on the parts that they will let you use, it is not simply a case of picking up some old ram and throwing it in, you have to match the speed, brands, ECC technology and slot types, which is quite painfull. to me it often worked out much easier to just spend the upgrades money on a new server or buy 2 servers. both the dell 2650's and the hp dl380's are good, i have worked on both, and i have to say i prefer the dells but thats more just personal opinon and doesnt have any technical backing. however i will say that you are much better to stick to one brand, from a business point of view, if you ever need photos it looks alot more professional to be using the same brands of pc's and servers. the other thing on the specs of the servers is that it is probably easier to get 1 server and set it up, and then add a new one when the time comes. if you are smart then you will migrate the servers through your business, i have a remote site server atm which was our original server when we started out. you may retire your first server and then useit to host your accounting software. i would recomend that you have all of your databases on a separate server, and have it with a bit more specs as databases are quite heavy on the processor and ram. also you should look at getting raid 5 HDD's (parity and stripped) it could be handy from the internet speed point of view to research v'lans. you should have an external, and internal and a data vlan in your case, the external should only utilise web traffic going externally. the data would be used for communcation between servers such as the web and database. and the internal one, only used for people at your site to upload documents ot the site. for monitoring them lookinto opmanager, they have a good free version, and you can let it notify you if the CPU or ram is consistently high etc.. think that was all i was going to write, and apologies if it was a bit disorganised, i had to write it from memory let me know how things go murray

08-09-2009, 11:51 PM	#5 (permalink)
bilbus TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 949 OS: OS2 Warp	Re: Choosing a used web server first off, no one upgrades OEM servers. Just buy a 2650/2600 or a DL G3/G4. You can get a G3 for like $200, considering what your gonna use it for makes no sence to buy a high end server. As for nic speed, you wont have a 1gb internet connection so what will that get you? CPU does not matter ... what ever current gen cpu you get will be just fine .. if getting a newer server. How you gonna deal with server failures? You going to get a backup server? What about a comcast outage? If they are down for 10 days, you got a plan? If your serious, your best bet would be to buy 2 servers, and colo em.