Hardware: Server Vs. Desktop

[jed79]

Hi, This is a fairly broad topic, but here goes.

I'm trying recommend some hardware for a group at my company who needs to run Sql Server 2000. It will house around 100 GB of Data across multiple databases within the instance of Sql Server.

There will be no more than 10 users hitting it at any given time....the data will be strictly used for reporting.

I originally recommended a Dell P2600 Server with Dual Xeon 3.0 GB processors with 1 GB of Ram for around $15,000. They're response was "Isn't that a little overkill? We can get a nice desktop for $1,000."

I'm just looking for some general pros and cons to a desktop machine vs a true server machine.

Thanks in advance.

 

[nigelrivett]

You could always get the desktop then migrate if it causes problems - and use the desktop as a test server.

Depends how it's designed but you might suffer from disk speed and network controler bottlenecks.

You would probably need a server version of the OS to run a server version of sql server or you will be stuck by the workload governor.

======================================
Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.
DTS can be used in a similar way.
Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy.

 

[mrdenny]

That "nice desktop" isn't going to have the Dual Xeon procs. It also won't have the RAID card, and redundand disks that you've probally got in the server. It also isn't going to have the redundant power, fans, etc that normaly come with a server.

Denny

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

 

[theoxyde]

That is a lot of data to be sifted through by a desktop system. Depending on how big of a factor speed is, you may not need multiple processors, but you do need a robust system that can run a RAID setup. That much data is going to put a lot of demand on the disk subsystem.

It may seem like the robust system with a RAID-5 array is a lot of overkill, but we are talking about a system designed to run Office, vs. a system that is designed to do the very thing you are doing -- and do it well.

 

[itsp1965]

At 100GB I would also recommend a server class machine. You could meet them half in terms of config though. You don't necessarily need 3.0GHz Xeon server to host this database but a good RAID subsystem would be a good idea.