Help me choose a high-performance server

Question

Iron

Good day to all.
It is necessary to choose a high-performance server for:
1. MS SQL 2008 R2 with several databases. 1 database is large ~70GB and the most frequently used
2. Several programs of our production to support the work of our services

Currently running server IBM xSystem x3550 M3 (2 processors E5620 @ 2.40 GHz, 32 Gb RAM, System on hard disk IBM 500 GB 7.2K 6 Gb /s, NL SAS 2.5", 70GB base and another our base on an SSD drive). At the moment we have performance problems (Actually, for a temporary solution, an SSD was bought, it got better, but still the problem did not completely go away). SQL is limited in memory usage of 12GB
Separately, there is also an IBM xSystem x3550 M2, which runs IIS AND our sites to serve web users.

Please help me choose a server up to $15,000 to replace the main server. Maybe instead of an SSD, buy 3 disks with a rotation speed of 15k SAS and make RAID0 out of them, or 1 such disk for the system and 1 SSD for SQL databases?

Please, help.

Answer 1

The disk that you indicated is IBM 500 GB 7.2K 6 Gb / s, NL SAS 2.5", it's not SAS at all, it's SATA mechanics with a SAS interface. So what kind of performance can we talk about on a SATA disk ??
For bases, it has long been proven, RAID 10 - just what the doctor ordered, and drives 15000 rpm
M3 server supports up to Memory (max) 288 GB DDR-3 RDIMMs via 18 DIMM slots or 48 GB DDR-3 UDIMMs via 12 DIMM slots
So there is room to add
. server up to 15k USD, then the same IBM x3550M4 will be completely invested in this budget.

Answer 2

As I understand it, everything depends on the disk subsystem, right? Then the server itself does not make much sense to change, give the SQL server more RAM to work with and install a fast RAID10 from SAS 15k or SSD. Keeping the production database on one disk is nonsense. In general, it is desirable to install two database servers in replication mode.
If there is a budget of 15k, then if I were you, I would buy a used HP DL380 G5 with a 405162-B21 controller and E5460 or higher processors, 32GB RAM, plus six new SAS 300G 15k, put it as a second server in replication mode, transfer the base, switched users to it and then put the same SAS disks on the main server. Then I would switch everything back, and the purchased server would be set to stand-by.

Answer 3

Here you can clearly see the drawdown of the disk subsystem - for the server that you specified, you can install it.
Disk subsystem:
(1) 2 x FusionIO ioDrive 160GB PCI-E - in increased performance mode (available capacity will be reduced by 2 times to 80GB) - connected in soft RAID0 (it will cost somewhere around 2 x 2-2.5k$ ) (according to IOPS suitable for both bases)
(2) 3 x SCSI 146GB RAID5 - backup with FusionIO
(3) 2 x SAS 10k 300GB - for the system
Memory:
increase the memory size to 48GB 12x4GB
Regarding the configuration of the new server, I would recommend HP DL series Gen8 based on the remaining budget

Answer 4

And please, tell me, is it worth taking a separate hard drive controller? Or, let's say in the case of IBM, can you get by with the built-in SR M5110 (512MB flash, raid 0/1/10/5/50)?

Answer 5

Aah, I see. Thank you.