My new server has arrived!
OK, after managing to convince my loving wife that I actually needed this server, deciding that I wanted a big Virtual Server server over multiple workstations, specc'ed out the server to within my budget and then awaited delivery - it has arrived!
There were a few issues though; first, delivery was not due until 19/Feb/2007 - however some fantastic storeman at Ingram Micro (without bribes mind you) has released the hardware early. Second, one of the 250GB sata hard drives is a Maxtor (the others all being seagate). Personally, I hate Maxtor drives, but appreciate that this could just be bad luck - the server has allowed me to build the RAID arrays with it, so I will continue on with a certain sense of apprehension.
The final issue was that to get this server earlier, I opted to build it myself (well, as much as you build a HP server). All I really had to do was install the RAM, the redundant power supplies, the second processor and the hard drives (which are hot swappable anyway).
The only tricky part to this was the RAM. I will not descend into the fits of swearing and hair pulling that was occurring in my office about 30 minutes ago - needless to say, it is not a simple matter of just lining things up (I should have known). I knew that you needed matched pairs, and I knew that they had to go into the same banks (Bank A presumably being Slots 1 & 2, etc). However, this is not completely accurate. Bank A is actually Slots 1 & 5; B is 2 & 6, etcetera. Lesson learned :)
Anyway, I am currently building the server as a Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition 64bit server - this will then host MS Virtual Server, which inturn will host 3-5 full time servers (for testing, primarily Exchange 2007) and another 10 or so rolling servers (For SBS migrations to 2007, coexistence, 2007->2007 migrations, etc).
The specs of the system, for those interested, are as follows;
- HP ML350G5T
- 4GB RAM (which should hopefully go to 6GB in the future)
- 2x 160GB SATA drives, RAID 1 - Host OS, and master images
- 2x 250GB SATA drives, RAID 0 - Storage and rolling images (I predict right now that the Maxtor drive will last no more than 6 months)
- Redundant Fan
- Dual Processor Xeon 5120 1.86GHz
Stay tuned on my adventures in building this monster test server
Kieran