@StrongBad said:

Oh no, you did it now. You are forever to be known as the "Purse Keeper."

Always loved your videos. I'll take that from you. Haha.

Part of the issue is, anyone can buy anything. Or be recommended to buy anything. But it is optimal?

As the keeper of the IT purse here, I've been proud we'll lasted so long on 10 years old servers.

I'm just looking to 100% maximize this next investment.

Thanks to everyone for the discussion today. It's been awesome!

@MattSpeller said:

I think you'll fit in well man, hope you stick around

I prefer texting/writing to talking. I'll be fine here!

So, to take a step back...

We are a smallish shop. We used to have 60-70 employees in our heyday, now we have 15.

We currently have 4 DELL Windows 2003 servers. A PDC that is also our data server. A BDC that is basically just a BDC and VPN server. A 3rd party mail server (MDaemon). And a server I've already retired that was basically just being used as a backup machine, back when we had tapes. (We now use a DATTO device.) When we were back at 60-70 employees, these servers sometimes had other uses. Now, not so much.

I'd like to maintian both the data server and mail server on site. I have no requirements other than moving off of Server 2003. In fact, if it wasn't for having to do that, we'd probably never even been having this conversation.

It sounds like the recommendation as of now is (hardware independent)

1. Move the data and mail servers into VMs on the new DELL server.
2. Use the data server as the DC and VPN server.
3. Roll without a backup DC.

@MattSpeller said:

Over 100 posts in 2h, whoa

Half of them are from me, though!

@scottalanmiller said:

We (NTG) don't use third party drives with proprietary server setups If investing in a Dell, for example, we get all Dell as compatibility and warranty support are the big value.

Do you ever use SSDs in DELL servers? Their prices are re-dic-culous!!

@scottalanmiller said:

Just looked at the "other" thread. 95 posts to 16. Not too shabby. And this one is still active.

This was like a live chat!

And no, I don't think this one is done yet. Not even remotely.

That's the issue with buying a server every 10 years. You lose track of this stuff.

@Dashrender said:

Perhaps you want to see if the H170 will support non Dell drives. Might be more in line with what you want.

You mean the DELL H710?

Apparently they are all the same.

Though there are a lot of people who do use 3rd parrty drives. I guess it all depends.

Again, excuse my DELL ignorance here, but on our current servers, if the hard drive was going, the server would turn orange, and OMSA would throw up an error.

I am assuming with a 3rd party RAID controller that all will be gone.

So in your setups, how is this handled? One of my original things was to keep the predictive alerts in place, and it seems like this solution is moving away from that.

@scottalanmiller said:

Have we even talked about what hypervisor to use yet? I think it was HyperV but don't remember if we saw that or I just imagined it.

Yes, going with Hyper-V.

@scottalanmiller said:

Not likely, the lights are not part of the controller or the drives. that would be part of the proprietary mechanisms.

Not likely the amber will keep blinking, or not likely any lights will work at all.

Also, with that kind of setup, where do the SMART alerts go? I'm just used to using DELL stuff and it all goes through their Server Admin product.

@scottalanmiller said:

@BRRABill said:

If only we could also cut the costs of the CALs of my bill, too!

Well.... Linux.

My head has gone from
9am: swimming
2pm: spinning
5pm: almost off axis

Linux would be the end of me.

I'm finding out if I can take 1 license off the paperwork. Maybe I'll order the 3rd party RAID controller and my day will be complete!

If only we could also cut the costs of the CALs of my bill, too!

If I decide to put a 3rd party RAID card in there...

1. Will it work with the hot-plug backplane that is currently in there?
2. Will it work in the T320 itself? Assuming/hoping it would just be a plug and play.
3. Will the drive lights work, or will I still have blinking amber? I know it can read SMART, but what control the lights on the drive carrier?
4. Any recommendation on a particular card?

Has anyone ever done this on the T320?

@scottalanmiller said:

He already paid for the license. So it is free now.

I technically haven't paid for it, but we ended up doing it in monthly payments, and I'm not sure the paperwork can be stopped.

Are you really recommending NOT to have a backup DC. Everything I have always read said to definitely do it. I think I'd feel better with it, but I can be talked out of that!

@scottalanmiller said:

It's not crazy at all. Since it's free and just adding extra redundancy.

Well, other than the license cost.

Well, even if I wanted to keep the backup DC, I could install Server 2012 on a desktop I have here, and at least save the cost of a second server.

That wouldn't be crazy, right? Other than the license cost.

@Jason said:

Exchange is best not virtualized.

Actually a third party mail server (MDaemon), not Exchange.

@scottalanmiller said:

What makes you so dependent on Active Directory? I've had AD go down for two weeks and not one user even mentioned it. That's atypical, but my point is that on its own AD is designed to be able to go offline for long periods of time with little or no impact. What's the specific risk that you are facing?

I was going on the concept you should always have 2 DCs.