Active Directory Controller

[dev3175]

The firm I am working in needs a new server to cover the place of Active Directory Controller. I would really like some suggestions as to what hardware i will need. There are about 150 users in the local network which will increase to about 200 in the next months. The server will handle logins, file sharing and network connectivity.

[AllGamer]

first off you need Win2k Advance Server

that's almost $10 K on its own, for the 200 licenses of users

besides that depending on your remaining budget

you might want to get a Beeffy server

at least 1 Gig of RAM

a fast CPU, most likely Intel inside

any 2 Ghz CPU will do

then LOTS OF HDD SPACE

you might or might not want to RAID it

depending

suggestion to use 5400 instead of 7200

unless you have Ca$h and go for SCSI

so to start off a 100 Gig HDD as the very least

then a good 3 Com NIC card

a stable server needs a good mobo and psu

so don't get those Onboard Everything Mobos

a good 400w PSU would be good

other than that, you might or might not need monitor, keyb + mouse

:t

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by AllGamer
so don't get those Onboard Everything Mobos Au contraire, Monsieur AG! He needs a server board - preferrably a 2-CPU rig - with 66MHz PCI slots and onboard video. P3 would do, but Xeon would be better. He also needs ECC RAM.

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/fam_thunder.html

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/fam_tiger.html

Frankly, I would go straight to Intel:

http://www.intel.com/products/server/index.htm?iid=ipp_nav+prod_srvr&#boards

[AllGamer]

of course those will be ideal as i said

depends on the "budget" he's getting :p

most companies gets barely nothing for the "IT department" :rolleyes:

which for the rest of the company is like a non existent domain )-|

but anways.. yeah if he can get the cash then of course the Duallies are the best

but i'll still will rather get a custom duallies than a "Server" mobo

besides if he's really getting that much cash

he might as well just buy a Dell server

that way if something goes wrong, he can get compesation back from Dell :p

[QwertyQ!]

Is to compaq dl380s. In base trim this box is about 6 grand.

With 2 procs, 2gigs of ram and 2 18gb and 4 34 or 72 gig drives it is a hair under 10 grand. They are well built and fairly redundant. Build you array with 18 gigs in mirror and 3 discs spanned for data with a hot spare and you've got a great platform.

We have one of these supporting a site of 250 and it never goes above 20 percent utilization. This box is a print server and handles nortonAV updates to all the clients.

You can hook up external disk to these boxes for a reasonable amout of money.

If you need a bunch of disk you can look at nas but that is another thread..

I don't buy capacity I don't need but if you are really growing the ML530 server can support about 3 times as many users as you have with extreme hardware redundancy. This box costs about 50 grand and is complicated to set up.

Buy service agreeements on whatever you buy. Unless you have highly qualafied techs onsite it pays off.

good luck.

[dev3175]

It seems I need a 2 CPU , 3 HDD 36Gb U320 SCSI on Raid and about 1 Gig ECC RAM System.
Do you really think that 2 CPU's and all that HDD space are really necesary?
I don't have any experience on active directory. What are the main differences from a primary domain controller that need so much extra space and CPU power?
I would like some opinions on DELL PowerEdge 2600, IBM x225 , HP-COMPAQ ProLiant ML350T03.
The budget that i estimated is around 4000 Euro.:)
As for the OS i already have the required licenses. Is there a need for Advanced Server? I was hoping to avoid going there. I thought that Windows 2000 Server would be fine.

[BipolarBill]

I believe that standard Server would be fine.

Understand that Server can handle 4 CPUs and 4GB RAM. If you want more memory than that, you'll require Advanced Server (8 CPUs/8GB RAM).

The reason that I recommend 2 CPUs is that there will be local services that need to run in addtion to supporting the network. A 2-CPU Server breathes easier by separating these processes and will give you less grief.

Yes - a 3-drive RAID 5 array would be ideal. If you'd like to save a few euros, look into a 3Ware Escalade IDE RAID setup. Adding another RAID 5 array later will be much less expensive and the drives can be huge. Honestly (once again), SCSI drives will "breathe easier" though.

A Dell PowerEdge 1600SC configured with 3-36GB SCSI drives as RAID 5 costs $5400 US with Server. You can build it yourself within your budget with AMD MP CPUs or Pentium 3 CPUs. I can't recommend a good cheap SCSI RAID adapter (no experience), but IBM OEM SCSI drives are quite affordable.

[burgerp]

200 users is for a small - medium company and if you already have server 2000, no need to go for Advanced Server.

[Midknyte]

You may want to have separate servers for file sharing, print sharing, etc. You can have one domain controller and share out the duties. If you put everything on one server, you'll bog it down. If you still want to have a single server, you better make it beefier. Dual cpu, a gig of ram, raid5, would all help.

w2k advanced server can actually handle up to 8 cpus. not that you'll need it.

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by Midknyte
w2k advanced server can actually handle up to 8 cpus. not that you'll need it. Oops! Typo. :(

That's right, but since few motherboards can accomodate 8 CPUs, clustering hardware becomes a necessity.

[QwertyQ!]

I strongly suggest you mirror your system partition and span your other volumes. It is a good idea to leave a hot spare. Don't forget to budget the backups..

good luck