RE: How would you go about this?
At scale: +1 Small orgs can handle individual servers. At scale just about everything needs to be cookie-cutter / commoditised to make it manageable. And that means fitting into vendor support offerings and lifecycles. You can't have too many different pieces and given that an upgrade program takes a while to implement, you can't be waiting 5-6 years to kick something off. Repurposing something into Test/Dev is fine if you are a small org. It's not feasible for large organisations. Cheers Ken -Original Message- From: Brian Desmond [mailto:br...@briandesmond.com] Sent: Friday, 2 April 2010 4:40 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? 3-4 years is a VERY standard lifecycle in many orgs. Five years is really pushing it and means that you're likely using some sort of supplemental hardware/field service which is just an extra burden to manage. Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com c - 312.731.3132 -Original Message- From: Angus Scott-Fleming [mailto:angu...@geoapps.com] Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 6:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? On 26 Mar 2010 at 10:05, Mike Gill wrote: if you can´t get at least 5 years out of your servers before replacement, then IMO you need help. -- Mike Gill FWIW I'm about to write a memo to a client telling them we need to replace their Windows 2000 Server box, which I put in sometime in 2004. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
3-4 years is a VERY standard lifecycle in many orgs. Five years is really pushing it and means that you're likely using some sort of supplemental hardware/field service which is just an extra burden to manage. Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com c - 312.731.3132 -Original Message- From: Angus Scott-Fleming [mailto:angu...@geoapps.com] Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 6:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? On 26 Mar 2010 at 10:05, Mike Gill wrote: if you can´t get at least 5 years out of your servers before replacement, then IMO you need help. -- Mike Gill FWIW I'm about to write a memo to a client telling them we need to replace their Windows 2000 Server box, which I put in sometime in 2004. -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-290-5038 Security Blog: http://geoapps.com/ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
I don't understand this mentality. I would expect to get 3 years from some white box generic desktop built with on-sale, B-grade components. With all the discussions on the list lately for getting matching brand hard drives, integrated management and other things than imply quality of build, this is (IIRC) the second comment I've read in the last few months where someone has difficulty with the concept of tech making it 5 years. If you're buying factory gear from hard drive to power cord you're paying premium top dollar. That money should mean something besides just the service contract. Specific performance requirements and current economic conditions aside, if you can't get at least 5 years out of your servers before replacement, then IMO you need help. -- Mike Gill From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
On 26 Mar 2010 at 10:05, Mike Gill wrote: if you can´t get at least 5 years out of your servers before replacement, then IMO you need help. -- Mike Gill FWIW I'm about to write a memo to a client telling them we need to replace their Windows 2000 Server box, which I put in sometime in 2004. -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-290-5038 Security Blog: http://geoapps.com/ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
I pretty much agree, we replace after three years, then we have always re-tasked the systems and used them for other projects for at least 5 years. We have some that are whitebox products that are over 7 years and still running. If we do not have a production use for them we move them into a test network and still utilize them there. From: Mike Gill [mailto:lis...@canbyfoursquare.com] Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 12:05 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? I don't understand this mentality. I would expect to get 3 years from some white box generic desktop built with on-sale, B-grade components. With all the discussions on the list lately for getting matching brand hard drives, integrated management and other things than imply quality of build, this is (IIRC) the second comment I've read in the last few months where someone has difficulty with the concept of tech making it 5 years. If you're buying factory gear from hard drive to power cord you're paying premium top dollar. That money should mean something besides just the service contract. Specific performance requirements and current economic conditions aside, if you can't get at least 5 years out of your servers before replacement, then IMO you need help. -- Mike Gill From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
That entirely depends on your purpose, business and cost hardware issues would have. We go on a three year cycle here. Do we have boxes older for various reasons? Yes, but those are decided on a case by case basis. Support. How important to the business is it? If it's important, then it gets replaced. Period. Hardware cost is a small part of the equation. Downtime, loss of business, potential loss of access to the data and how much that would cost the business, etc. Tactical. Is their new hardware technology coming out soon from our HW vendor? If yes, we may delay new hardware (new HP series later this year?) so that we will get the benefit of the new technologies sooner. If you can stretch your budget and risk on hardware for 5 years and all the associated OS and associated application updates associated with it, then that's is perfectly alright. But if you business would have a negative cost then there is nothing wrong with updating in a timely manner. We have much older systems out there. We find them irritating and darn near impossible to get sign off on upgrading them 'because it's working fine' when no, not really, it strains the support people more when things go wrong on them. Again, this is all down to your business requirements, not 'replacing hardware sooner then 5 years is just wrong'. Steven Peck On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Terry Dickson te...@treasurer.state.ks.us wrote: I pretty much agree, we replace after three years, then we have always re-tasked the systems and used them for other projects for at least 5 years. We have some that are whitebox products that are over 7 years and still running. If we do not have a production use for them we move them into a test network and still utilize them there. From: Mike Gill [mailto:lis...@canbyfoursquare.com] Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 12:05 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? I don’t understand this mentality. I would expect to get 3 years from some white box generic desktop built with on-sale, B-grade components. With all the discussions on the list lately for getting matching brand hard drives, integrated management and other things than imply quality of build, this is (IIRC) the second comment I’ve read in the last few months where someone has difficulty with the concept of tech making it 5 years. If you’re buying factory gear from hard drive to power cord you’re paying premium top dollar. That money should mean something besides just the service contract. Specific performance requirements and current economic conditions aside, if you can’t get at least 5 years out of your servers before replacement, then IMO you need help. -- Mike Gill From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help… ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help... From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.orgmailto:dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
“You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help.” *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You’d be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help… From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
What's the deal? We typically get 5 years out of our servers also. From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help... From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
A file server is probably a good candidate for a longer life cycle than most servers. It needs good memory, good storage, and good network capability. As long as you can maintain a support contract on the box, I'd keep it in service. That being said, you indicate my growth estimate is OK, but you don't indicate which one. If youre growth is linear, any file server you pick (and almost any size disk) is fine. However, if you're experiencing exponential data growth, then you're going to be around 4 TB of data by the end of life of your server. My contention is that the server is becoming immaterial to your storage problem. Looking at a SAN or NAS now, could save you considerable headaches in the future. I didn't say it like that (Jon Harris already had), but I was trying to lead you there. Splitting data to different HD's/devices/servers will actually make you go crazy. My current data store (which is split among servers) is roughly 1 TB, before I virtualized storage, storage was probably my biggest headache, I never seemd to have enough where I needed it. Now if I need more, I allocate more and I'm done. if I need more capacity (which I do), I order more/bigger disks or could order another unit. If I replaced all my servers every three years, I'd be hard pressed to do some of the other things I'm interested in doing or are better for the firm. That being said, I do replace workstations (notebooks) every three years. On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: You get five years out of a server? I think *you* need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help… *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] *Sent:* Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM *To:* NT System Admin Issues *Subject:* Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
+1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
We just replaced our 3 servers with 2 new Dells and went with Hyper-V on 1. The 3 that were replaced were 7 1/2 years old and it was a matter of getting parts. Bob Anderson IT Manager Kent Sporting Goods Inc. 433 Park Ave. S New London OH 44851 419-929-7021 x315 Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com
RE: How would you go about this?
We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data
RE: How would you go about this?
That's the paradigm I'm looking at; install HV or VM on bare metal and put the OS in a guest. If the backup/image storage is done correctly, your recoverability goes way up. We just lost a server at a client; older Dell and the raid controller smoked the OS mirror. Client doesn't want to pay what it's going to take to rebuild and try to recover. Same client that wouldn't flatten the box when it got hacked 6 months ago. Same client that wouldn't spend the money on disk storage to enable adequate backups. So they've lost a DC/file server but fortunately, the data left there wasn't critical. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Bob Anderson [mailto:bander...@kentwatersports.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 7:04 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? We just replaced our 3 servers with 2 new Dells and went with Hyper-V on 1. The 3 that were replaced were 7 1/2 years old and it was a matter of getting parts. Bob Anderson IT Manager Kent Sporting Goods Inc. 433 Park Ave. S New London OH 44851 419-929-7021 x315 P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone
RE: How would you go about this?
Lucky... we're pushing seven years with web and sql servers. Still have some desktops that are at least 9 years old. _ Cameron Cooper Network Administrator | CompTIA A+ Certified Aurico Reports, Inc Phone: 847-890-4021 | Fax: 847-255-1896 ccoo...@aurico.com | www.aurico.com From: Maglinger, Paul [mailto:pmaglin...@scvl.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:44 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? What's the deal? We typically get 5 years out of our servers also. From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help... From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
+5 I find that 4-5 years is the norm, especially with the recent (and still very fresh or current for some people) recession in mind.At 3 years, you haven't even fully amortized the hardware yet. One thing that virtualization is going to help with going forward is isolating hardware and i/o improvements from the applications that sit on top of it. It is much easier to add incremental hardware and migrate the most critical VMs to it, thereby gaining significant performance improvements for those apps, and modest performance improvements for servers and apps which are left behind on the older-and-now-less-burdened host servers. Virtualizing both storage and servers is the way to go. -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Jonathan Link jonathan.l...@gmail.comwrote: A file server is probably a good candidate for a longer life cycle than most servers. It needs good memory, good storage, and good network capability. As long as you can maintain a support contract on the box, I'd keep it in service. That being said, you indicate my growth estimate is OK, but you don't indicate which one. If youre growth is linear, any file server you pick (and almost any size disk) is fine. However, if you're experiencing exponential data growth, then you're going to be around 4 TB of data by the end of life of your server. My contention is that the server is becoming immaterial to your storage problem. Looking at a SAN or NAS now, could save you considerable headaches in the future. I didn't say it like that (Jon Harris already had), but I was trying to lead you there. Splitting data to different HD's/devices/servers will actually make you go crazy. My current data store (which is split among servers) is roughly 1 TB, before I virtualized storage, storage was probably my biggest headache, I never seemd to have enough where I needed it. Now if I need more, I allocate more and I'm done. if I need more capacity (which I do), I order more/bigger disks or could order another unit. If I replaced all my servers every three years, I'd be hard pressed to do some of the other things I'm interested in doing or are better for the firm. That being said, I do replace workstations (notebooks) every three years. On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: You get five years out of a server? I think *you* need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help… *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] *Sent:* Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM *To:* NT System Admin Issues *Subject:* Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: How would you go about this?
Same here, 7-10 years on some servers, including SQL. Man Server 2000 is great! Just wish I had the budget to can all 10 of my servers and get two rockin' machines and virtualize everything. The second would be for hot moves/failover to a data room 300 ft away connected with fiber. Jeff Johnson Systems Administrator 714-773-2600 Office 714-773-6351 Fax [cid:image001.jpg@01CACC06.70820640] From: Cameron Cooper [mailto:ccoo...@aurico.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:21 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? Lucky... we're pushing seven years with web and sql servers. Still have some desktops that are at least 9 years old. _ Cameron Cooper Network Administrator | CompTIA A+ Certified Aurico Reports, Inc Phone: 847-890-4021 | Fax: 847-255-1896 ccoo...@aurico.commailto:ccoo...@aurico.com | www.aurico.com From: Maglinger, Paul [mailto:pmaglin...@scvl.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:44 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? What's the deal? We typically get 5 years out of our servers also. From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help... From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.orgmailto:dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~inline: image001.jpg
Re: How would you go about this?
Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.comwrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out
Computer lifecycle (was: How would you go about this?)
On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Cameron Cooper ccoo...@aurico.com wrote: Lucky… we’re pushing seven years with web and sql servers. Still have some desktops that are at least 9 years old. We've got a 7 year old server that's still doing print services. Gonna have to migrate that when we get off Win 2000 in a couple months. We've got a couple desktops that are about 10 years old. XP Pro running with 384 MB RAM on a 700 MHz CPU. Real speed demons, they are. They're on the factory floor, and don't do much (which is good, because they can't do much!). We've got a couple ancient 486 machines that are acting as what would be called thin clients these days. They're so old nobody knows how old they are. As they die off they're replaced with more modern solutions. We don't replace things just because Dell or Microsoft says they're old. If they're doing the job, there's no ROI in replacing them. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
Independent corroboration is never superfluous! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Andrew S. Baker asbz...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came
Re: How would you go about this?
Fair enough. :) It also helps to read more than one post before replying, when you come into a thread with quite a few posts. LOL -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Jonathan Link jonathan.l...@gmail.comwrote: Independent corroboration is never superfluous! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Andrew S. Baker asbz...@gmail.comwrote: Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server
RE: How would you go about this?
I prefer to think of it as: A consensus of opinion from great minds lend validity to the proposed solution. -sc From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:asbz...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:34 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here
RE: How would you go about this?
Hey, I just said the same thi. WAIT Yeah! -sc From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? Independent corroboration is never superfluous! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Andrew S. Baker asbz...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l
Re: How would you go about this?
I love this list! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.comwrote: Hey, I just said the same thi….. WAIT…. Yeah! -sc *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] *Sent:* Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:41 PM *To:* NT System Admin Issues *Subject:* Re: How would you go about this? Independent corroboration is never superfluous! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Andrew S. Baker asbz...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data
Re: How would you go about this?
LOL -ASB On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Jonathan Link jonathan.l...@gmail.comwrote: I love this list! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.comwrote: Hey, I just said the same thi….. WAIT…. Yeah! -sc *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] *Sent:* Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:41 PM *To:* NT System Admin Issues *Subject:* Re: How would you go about this? Independent corroboration is never superfluous! On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Andrew S. Baker asbz...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc -Original Message- From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? +1. While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and some of them are ugly. *** Charlie Kaiser charl...@golden-eagle.org Kingman, AZ *** -Original Message- From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new server in many if not most cases. That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware upgrades Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, Security ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: How would you go about this? You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations and servers. Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect
How would you go about this?
I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
If you could virtualize the file server on to a big 2008 based server then you could try using the image backup within 2008 to backup the virtual machine to disk. 2 TB USB drives are not that expensive but any good USB or share based drive system would work a little smoother for you. As the file server grows you could continue to either decide to switch it to a SAN or NAS with a built in backup. Your shares would not truely change as the server is virtual with the files off the server. Jon On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: How would you go about this?
I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart your request. We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 months or so. On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don dholst...@nbm.org wrote: I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of that range. I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. So I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will continue to increase at the same rate... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
