7 replies to this topic

[Shauninusa]

Just looking for some guidance if anyone out there can help.
I have inherited 4 servers each one has the following specs
Single Quad-core Intel Xeon Harpertown E5410 Processor, 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM
12 SATA raid storage bays (WD 500GB in bay 0 2x2TB seagate drives in bays 1&2)
LSI Megaraid contoller that boots from bios.

I can add extra drives and also swap out the memory so one server has 8Gb but wanted to know if the quad core Xeon 2.33Mhz processor was enough power to run WHS2011 and allow me to run and encode HD video?

I have already installed WHS2011 on one of the servers but have not played with it yet or activated it. I dont want to active the license key yet incase the server is not powerfull enough allowing me to buy a new server if need be.

Any guidance or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Shaun

[Garry]

The quad core will be more than enough power to not only
encode HD video but to also run any add-ins and transcode
video if you need to. The only shortcomming is the ram. At
the current price of memory you would do nicely with 4gb and
be comfortable. WHS 2011 won't really use any more than that.

[Shauninusa]

Thanks for the help. I can also add a second processor to this rig from one of the other servers this wont buy me anything though right as WHS does not support 2 cpus right?

[Garry]

Shauninusa, on 08 February 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

Thanks for the help. I can also add a second processor to this rig from one of the other servers this wont buy me anything though right as WHS does not support 2 cpus right?

Right. WHS 2011 will only support 1 physical cpu socket with multiple cores.

[oj88]

Wow, inheriting one server is cool enough, but four? Santa must love you.

To be honest, those specs are borderline overkill for a home server, even with HD encoding. But it's a full fledged server, nevertheless. That should tide you over for the next 3-5 years. On the downside, you may want to look into power consumption and equipment (fan) noise. These equipment were designed for datacenter use and component reliability in mind. They're not particularly power misers and depending on where you place it and how quiet your home is, the noise can become quite annoying at the least.

[Shauninusa]

Yes its very noisey, but I have a hardware closet 10x8 room with air conditioning which i also use as a lab for a lot of my Cisco networking lab equipment. The joys of working in IT. With the door shut you cant hear it or any of the other lab hardware in there. The power is a diferent issue but I do have a number of other servers running VMs which I use a lot for testing they dont seem to be overly expensive to run.

[oj88]

Shauninusa, on 08 February 2012 - 10:03 PM, said:

Yes its very noisey, but I have a hardware closet 10x8 room with air conditioning which i also use as a lab for a lot of my Cisco networking lab equipment. The joys of working in IT. With the door shut you cant hear it or any of the other lab hardware in there. The power is a diferent issue but I do have a number of other servers running VMs which I use a lot for testing they dont seem to be overly expensive to run.

That's great! Small world, as I'm also used to be into Cisco. I have a CCIE cert in R&S since 2003 that I still maintain. I've sold most of my Cisco gear except for a 2621XM router and a couple of 1232AG access points, which I still use in my production network at home. Once you've worked with enterprise-grade equipment, it's hard to switch back to consumer ones. That includes servers! On that regard, I am not quite as fortunate and had to settle with desktop-class parts.

[Shauninusa]

oj88, on 09 February 2012 - 05:20 AM, said:

That's great! Small world, as I'm also used to be into Cisco. I have a CCIE cert in R&S since 2003 that I still maintain. I've sold most of my Cisco gear except for a 2621XM router and a couple of 1232AG access points, which I still use in my production network at home. Once you've worked with enterprise-grade equipment, it's hard to switch back to consumer ones. That includes servers! On that regard, I am not quite as fortunate and had to settle with desktop-class parts.

I too have my CCIE in R&S got mine in jan 2001. Still play with Cisco hardware all the time, I do it as part of my job. The servers i inherited are the CIVS-MSP-2RU IP surveylance servers. Nice powerfull boxes, I also have some of the CIVS-MSP-1RU models but they only have 4 SDRAM slots the 2RU's have 16.