OK. So I ordered our XServe with the 73GB SAS system drive (15,000RPM) and two 750GB SATA drives. My order is not set to ship until JAN 4!!!!

I was just notified that if I swap the 73GB SAS for an 80GB SATA I can get the unit in 7-10 days. So I am in a bind... Get the machine sooner with a SATA or wait till sometime in the new year and get the faster SAS!

I am not that familiar with the XServe performance, so I am wondering if the SATA is going to be enough to handle what I need it to do. I will not be hosting mass website off it or anything, it will be hosting our FTP, our Intranet, our Library Database and our Digital Work Order system.

I also want to setup share points for backups, Remote Desktop, and workgroups for easier administration of company computers (And if a computer goes down, the user folder is already backed up and they can just login from a new system).

In the future, we are going to try and integrate out Mail system into it as well.

So, will the SATA be enough for this? or should I hold out for the SAS??

Thanks.

How many users are you expecting to be concurrently accessing the server? With a standard 100Mbit ethernet network you shouldn't see any significant slowdowns until you hit 50 or so clients.

If you're planning on RAIDing the two 750s together, the speed increase should pretty much match that of the 15k RPM 73GB drive.

I have not decided if I am going to RAID them or not. I expect there to be at least 50 users accessing their user folders at all times (As we have more than 50 employees). Now, my understanding on this is that it will just pull the info when they login and then post the info when they log-out, so the read/writes on this feature should be fairly low and not conncurrent with each other as they all come in at different times (Maybe a bit of a slowdown around 9am).

Anybody? Anybody? Beuller?

hint---

"Yup, Sometimes Life Moves Pretty Fast."


kidding, just thought I'd pipe in a Beullerism

I know nothing of servers. :(

I doubt you're going to store network home folders on the 73GB drive, right? If you're planning on having the 2x750GB drives as general network storage (always mounted) there's no real need for the 15k RPM drive.

If you're planning on doing heavy database access, you might see a decent speed increase using the 15k drive.

I'd recommend using the 2x750GBs as a general storage area - keep everything except the system files on them. if you decide to get a faster drive in the future, you can transition your database and intranet files to it, for quicker response.

What's your backup strategy?

I have a 1TB Ethernet drive that I will be using for backups.
Once everything is setup on the system drive, I am going to image the drive and back that up as well. I will do backups weekly for the other disks.

For the user folders, they will be able to run their systems offsite as well, so it will only be doing read-writes when the login and logoff (No more backups for the staff... wait, they rarely backup anyway!! All good!!)

I will drop that SAS for now and get the SATA. I am sure by the time I need the speed boost the SAS will have dropped signifigantly in price.