Looking for advice on specs for Server 2016, considering NVMe devices
I'm assisting a client with the purchase of a new server and was looking for feedback on the choices. It's for an accounting firm with about 15 users. It will run Windows Server 2016 hosting two VMs, one as the DC (AD, DHCP, DNS) and the other VM for file sharing and applications.
I'm looking seriously at a Dell PowerEdge T440 with a Xeon Silver 4110 (8c/16T 2.1GHz), 32g of RAM, 2 120G SATA SSDs for the host. My real uncertainty is on the storage for the VMs. I like the specs and pricing of using a HighPoint SSD7010A-1 PCIe/NVMe card with four Samsung 970 Pro devices (also looking at WD Black devices) either in two RAID 1 arrays (my preference) or a single RAID 1/0 array. I've been very impressed with the Samsung devices before and think they would be a good fit here.
While I'm interested in any general comments on the specs, I'm mostly interested in comments and experiences with the HighPoint card and NVMe drives used as server VM drives. Keeping cost in perspective, four of the Samsung 1T devices with the HighPoint card gives me 2T of fast storage at a cost of about $2,400. If I use the WD Black devices, the price drops about $400.
Your input would be appreciated!
I'm looking seriously at a Dell PowerEdge T440 with a Xeon Silver 4110 (8c/16T 2.1GHz), 32g of RAM, 2 120G SATA SSDs for the host. My real uncertainty is on the storage for the VMs. I like the specs and pricing of using a HighPoint SSD7010A-1 PCIe/NVMe card with four Samsung 970 Pro devices (also looking at WD Black devices) either in two RAID 1 arrays (my preference) or a single RAID 1/0 array. I've been very impressed with the Samsung devices before and think they would be a good fit here.
While I'm interested in any general comments on the specs, I'm mostly interested in comments and experiences with the HighPoint card and NVMe drives used as server VM drives. Keeping cost in perspective, four of the Samsung 1T devices with the HighPoint card gives me 2T of fast storage at a cost of about $2,400. If I use the WD Black devices, the price drops about $400.
Your input would be appreciated!
How do you intend to monitor the storage for faults? With Dell PERC you would use OMSA and iDRAC but they won't monitor the health of that HighPoint card.
ASKER
The HighPoint card does have a utility to monitor the storage. I do check the server often for a variety of reasons so manual checking would not be a real issue.
I can't see a driver for VMware for that card.
ASKER
Sorry, should have been clearer. I'll be using Hyper-V.
Well it will work then, but I don't think it's honest to put it in a Dell server case, if you get run over by a bus and then it fails and they call Dell out to fix it they're screwed. Use a servermicro case and motherboard so they know it's a custom solution.
ASKER
I appreciate the comment. They will know very well that it is a hybrid solution.
The NVMe drives look like a very good way to get speed at a reasonable cost. I'm wondering why I'm not hearing of others using them that way.
The NVMe drives look like a very good way to get speed at a reasonable cost. I'm wondering why I'm not hearing of others using them that way.
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ASKER
Thank you for the reference. The x4 bus on the Intel board may be a significant limitation on the maximum bandwidth, but they are still quite fast. I'll look more seriously into those.
ASKER
Sorry.... should have closed this long ago. I do appreciate the useful information.