mairving — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 12:39:30 +0000

A Fileserver really doesn't need a fast processor, since it really isn't processing anything like a SQL Server would be. RAM and some fast SCSI drives and of course, good pipes in your network would be much more valuable.

I run Samba on the fileserver and it runs pretty good. It has been up for about 5 months straight now without a reboot. Actually only 5 months because I had to shut it down and move it. There are a few problems with permissions since 'nix permissions are more basic than those in Windows. You also have to create a user on both machines. I would probably run FreeBSD on it now.

Ken Elliott — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 20:09:58 +0000

Thank you that really helps. I was under the impression that one server would be enough, though i should have known better. Used to work at a ISP and they had 3 servers setup. Mail, Web, and incoming connections. Chances are I'm just going to keep the web and mail servers offsite. That way if something goes awry I can blame it on them .

As for staying with Novell or going with a new OS. I would think staying with Novell is the way to go. We have about 20 users at the most and they all run XP, I run OS X. Because I'm special . Your file server seems like exactly what I am looking for. How would a server like that apply to my situation, though I would prefer the specs to be more like your Mail Server.

Thanks Mark.
Ken

mairving — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 20:29:40 +0000

Well, the main thing that you don't won't to do is to put everything on one server. I would probably go with 2-3 depending on the OS that you are using. Do you plan on upgrading Netware, or going with Windows 2000/3 server for the internal network side of things?

I would definitely have the webserver on a separate machine. Really if you don't have a lot of traffic, you could even put the webserver on the old Netware server, add RAM and SCSI if necessary and go from there. I use FreeBSD for my webserver. It is a little more robust than Linux and updating via ports is quite easy. I don't know if I would go with RAID, since it is probably a little overkill. I would go with a good tape backup instead.

So the questions are:
How many users on the internal side?
What operating system are they running?
Do you plan on staying with Novell or going with another OS as your server?

At my work, I have about 80 users. Here is how mine is setup:
Webserver - Dual Zeon 2.4 Ghz with 1.5GB of RAM, 2 36GB SCSI drives (non-raid) FreeBSD.
Backup Webserver - P3-500 Mhz with 512M or RAM 1 -72GB
Mail Server - Dual Zeon 2.4Ghz with 1.5GB RAM, 2 36-GB SCSI drives running Windows 2000 server and Exchange (can't get rid of Exchange since it was preexisting but I would like to). Also has a Sony AIT-3 drive with Veritas Backup Exec.
Domain Controller - Athlon 2000+ with 1GB RAM and 2 30GB IDE Drives running Windows 2000.
SQL Server - Dual Zeon 2.4Ghz with 1.5GB RAM, 2 36-GB SCSI drives running Windows 2000 server and SQL Server 2000 for a proprietary app.
Proxy Server - P3-800Mhz with 512Mb of RAM, 30 GB hard drive and running Slackware Linux.
File Server - Athlon 2000+ with 1GB RAM and 3-36GB SCSI Drive running Slackware Linux
Full T1 line

I am a big believer in spreading out the load among servers and building redundancy into the network.