Thread: Dell R200? - Advice and Help.

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The onboard network card should be fine for a single co-lo server unless there is a particular reason you need more ports or want to avoid Broadcom NICs.

The DRAC is nice to have for emergency remote management but as most hosts have remote reboot ports and IP KVMs available then it's not really essential.

I'd say the only thing you really need is RAID1 and 2 HDDs, this way in the event of a single HDD failiure, your server, data and customers are still online.

DRAC is nice for remote admin / OS installs / Problem diagnosis, but if you're using a good host with onsite / local staff then it shouldn't be an issue.

I'd expect power draw to be 0.4a for that.

J

Another vote for RAID, it can really save your bacon, esp. with a colo'd box if you're not able to get to it quickly.

If you're colo-ing with Rapidswitch as per your other thread, you won't need DRAC as they have people there 24/7 to reboot or attach roaming KVM.

Have you considered leasing to save the capex and also the on going support. That kind of spec can be had extremely cost effectively and you off load the up front costs and the hardware support on someone else?

Originally Posted by PeteK

Have you considered leasing to save the capex and also the on going support. That kind of spec can be had extremely cost effectively and you off load the up front costs and the hardware support on someone else?

was just going to paste the same (had typed it in the other thread, but didnt want to take it OT)

I cant see a singe upside in purchase and colo over rental.

J

Originally Posted by JamieBeeston

was just going to paste the same (had typed it in the other thread, but didnt want to take it OT)

I cant see a singe upside in purchase and colo over rental.

J

Well if you want to remain in control of your hardware and if you are going to be buying more quite quickly then when as we all know you get to full racks,cages it is easily more cost efficient.

However when you look at Softlayer and now the planet (I think) they allow you to aggregate bandwidth among your rented boxes and you can get a reseller discount if you have more 5 so you can see a price drop and some of the benefits of colo.

Although don't think there is anyone over here that does that.. yet.

With respect to lot's of the guys on here but they make their money renting out boxes so will of course think that is the best option.

For single servers though it is the best option and from what you have said you would likely be better off in every way going for a rented box (managed ?).

In control of your hardware? or in control of your hardware liability

The only upside is the ability to take the kit away, but a good backup policy negates that .. and that assumes your provider (or theirs, or theirs etc) will let you.. as we've seen many times before when people go pop.. kit gets held to ransom!

The only times I see purchase being in your favour are

a) you can afford to purchase and colo your own hot spares due to your size
b) you have a requirement for unusual / bespoke kit which providers are less likely to carry.

We (and others) offer a 1 hour repair or replace policy, 24/7/365 on our Serverstream rentals, you just cant get that level of service on colo.

Originally Posted by danfoster

Another vote for RAID, it can really save your bacon, esp. with a colo'd box if you're not able to get to it quickly.

If you're colo-ing with Rapidswitch as per your other thread, you won't need DRAC as they have people there 24/7 to reboot or attach roaming KVM.

I see, im rather tight on budget.. atm. However i presume i will be able to install a RAID if i ordered the part separately at a later date? Or will this render my warranty in anyway? Im also assuming the server will need to come compatible with RAID capability before ordering the 2nd HDD am i correct?

Im slightly confused i notice the options to go for a "Onboard SATA, 2 Drives - RAID 0" and also notice No RAID 1. Whats the difference between 0, and 1? Also ive noticed it requires a controller on top of that. Will it be ok if i go for the "C4 - Add-in SAS6iR (SATA/SAS Controller) which supports 2 Hard Drives - RAID 1" and get my server up and running and at a later date i order the switch and the 2nd HDD - or will this not work? (Im assuming it wont?)

As you guys have mentioned a RAID would be good but i may have to take my chances before the end of January.. However i know a RAID will be paramount.. if it renders my warranty for getting a RAID and installing it at a later date... then i just might have to buckle up and get it alltogether. Otherwise how long do you think i am likely to survive?


Ive made a reply previous to this, i dont know why it hasnt showed up. (EDIT: Good thing i saved it.. my previous post is above.)

As for whats better.. colo or dedi i have weighed the options.. colo is much better.

1. Dedi dosent have the hardware specs im after,
2. The hardware specs im after for dedi will cost me over £200 p/m
3. Already there is a dedi box being rented out in the region of 1.4k a year (This has been going on for a few years now.)

With Colo I am likely to last more than a year and am able to:

1. Purchase the desired hardware in the region of £600 inc VAT.
2. Pay Colo fee's p/m,
3. = HUGE Saving already.
4. On top I will be able to recoup some of the money by renting out game servers/voip etc.

As for hardware failure, repairs yes that will be up to me also as i have a family member who is very familiar with servers that can help. The server will also come with a 3 year warranty which already covers the box if anything should stop working.

£200 a month!! Ouch..

Look around a little more

RAID0 takes 2 hdds and gives you one Logical drive with 2x the space of 1 drive, but no redundancy.. if either drive fails you lose ALL data

RAID1 takes 2 hdds and gives you one Logical drive with 1x the space of 1 drive, but with a mirror copy of all data on both HDDs, so if one drive fails, you carry on as normal (not even a reboot) and just arrange a time to have your host (on a rental) swap in the replacement HDD (at their cost on a rental)

Your math works with the numbers you've provided, but it's not all about money, and the numbers you've provided are far far far over what you could get an R200 with similar spec for from many on here..

Warranty is fine if you dont mind being down for hours / days on end..
Dell promise to be ONSITE in 4 hours (if you pay for the 4 hour support, which doubles your cap ex cost!) but not to FIX it in 4 hours...

Only you know if you can survive an extended (day+) outage.

J

Originally Posted by JamieBeeston

£200 a month!! Ouch..

Look around a little more

RAID0 takes 2 hdds and gives you one Logical drive with 2x the space of 1 drive, but no redundancy.. if either drive fails you lose ALL data

RAID1 takes 2 hdds and gives you one Logical drive with 1x the space of 1 drive, but with a mirror copy of all data on both HDDs, so if one drive fails, you carry on as normal (not even a reboot) and just arrange a time to have your host (on a rental) swap in the replacement HDD (at their cost on a rental)

Your math works with the numbers you've provided, but it's not all about money, and the numbers you've provided are far far far over what you could get an R200 with similar spec for from many on here..

Warranty is fine if you dont mind being down for hours / days on end..
Dell promise to be ONSITE in 4 hours (if you pay for the 4 hour support, which doubles your cap ex cost!) but not to FIX it in 4 hours...

Only you know if you can survive an extended (day+) outage.

J

haha i enjoyed reading your post. You are right in all aspects, however i weighed Colo and dedi's in terms of bandwidth, ip etc. Some dedi's either dont supply you with enough IP's or not enough bandwidth. And if they did they wouldnt probably have the hardware your after. Thats the problem im facing.

I would love to see something very similar to a Quad Core Intel® Xeon® X3360, 2.83GHz, 2x6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB with 4GB Ram, atleast 3TB's and 15 Ip's or more (which is what im after) - UK Based (under £60-70 p/m)

Edit: However, if im stuck with downtime then yes.. i dont think i could evade that, which will be a problem.

Well without playing devil's advocate, if you colo local to yourself you can just take in a hdd or RAM (if these are the bits that fail) and swap them in yourself or pay for the dc staff to do so.

But 60 - 70 a month for that spec is fantasy.

Also to get raid 1 and 2 hard drives with 4gb ram on a r200 will more likely be ~£1k (as I'd go for the drac card as well myself). So lets say thats £100 a month over the year. Plus colo costs of at least £60 + vat your budget for renting a dedi should be a £150 which is doable with some of the providers on here.

Originally Posted by maksam

I would love to see something very similar to a Quad Core Intel® Xeon® X3360, 2.83GHz, 2x6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB with 4GB Ram, atleast 3TB's and 15 Ip's or more (which is what im after) - UK Based (under £60-70 p/m)

I think you missed a zero off your budget

You need to take into account the costs of :
* space in a datacentre
* location of the datacentre
* connectivity and your bandwidth
* power and the heat output by the server
* if going dedi rather than colo say 1/10th /month of the hardware cost
- Then add on some for support, admin costs, profit etc.
and call that "£x"

If you're geting quotes lower than "£x", the suppliers either lying to you about what you'll get, is financially up-sh!t-creek and desperate for the money, about to go t!tsup.com, or selling you a norwegian-blue.

The colo vs dedi debate is one of the ISP Holy Wars
- those that want you to take a cheap-sh!t machine for 3years upfront that you wont want in 3 months, or simply ar reselling the datacentre or 3rd-party services for a commission love dedi's
- those that have lots of space they're committed to and cant afford, or are a reseller of a reseller of a reseller at some @rse-end-of-the-universe datashed love colo's
- those that offer both prefer the client to decide

With dedicated you move the hardware *responsibility* onto the provider, who can normally provide a much better reesponse rate, fix time, and maintenance service than the manufacturers - the downside is you never "own" the equipment, it therefore isnt part of the companies books as an asset, and you're paying for it month-afer-month-after-month

For those that need a custom setup/unique hardware, or already own the kit (so no further capex), or very specific needs, or need expensive kit and want it affecting "the bottom line", then colo *might* be more suitable

With any decent colo provider you wont ever need to visit the DC, and depending on your hardware, even a cpu replacement at 2.08am New Years Day wont be an issue - of course all these things do cost money.

Colo for a single "relatively standard" box - IMHO is not worth it over a dedicated server.

And relying on a Dell 4hour onsite is asking for downtime ... as Jamie says thats 4hours to arrive, not 4 hours to fix, sometimes they have to go away for days to get parts, or the fault isnt "fixed" or breaks 15 minutes after they leave ... and thats 4 hours *after* they accept there's a fault - which can be 2 days of them getting you to reinstall the o/s etc first ...