I need a web server for static web content, a corporate blog and the company e-commerce system.  I have some ideas, but thought of seeking additional feedback from the world's best server pros!  NOTE 1 - the company has around 300 customers, and revenues around $1 Million.  Let's see, several hundred users a day, downloading and otherwise viewing our site.  I'm hoping the new server will help us boost traffic so I want to give myself something to grow into.  So far, I'm looking at something lie:  8-core Opteron  16-32 GB RAM  4 x 1 TB drives (some kind of RAID)  Gigabit LAN  Am I on the right track?  NOTE 2 - This is what I went with:   Rackform nServ A161 Opteron 6128 2.0GHz, 8-Core  16GB (4 x 4GB) Operating at 1333MHz Max (DDR3-1333 2 x Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet Controllers Integrated IPMI 2.0 with Dedicated LAN  LSI 9260-4i 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID 4 X 1TB Seagate Constellation ES Optical Drive: Low-Profile DVD+/-RW Drive Power 350W Power Supply
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This is a  about  Related:      I have a question regarding capacity planning. Can the Server Fault community please help with the following:   What kind of server do I need to handle some number of users? How many users can a server with some specifications handle? Will some server configuration be fast enough for my use case? I'm building a social networking site: what kind of hardware do I need? How much bandwidth do I need for some project? How much bandwidth will some number of users use in some application?
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I am requesting a new server from our Server team. Which is better for SQL Server performance: 2 CPUs with 8 cores per CPU or 1 CPU with 16 cores?
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I have a fairly busy database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 that has the following setup:   SATA RAID 1 (2 Drives)  - OS / Programs SAS  RAID 10 (4 Drives) - Sql Database Files (data and logs) SAS  RAID 1 (2 Drives)  - TempDB (data and logs)   Assuming I can't add additional drives into this server, have I made the best use of the configuration I have available? Or should I consider another scheme here where logs are isolated from the data files, for example?  Update:  For those that requested further hardware details:   The SATA drives (used for the OS / Program partition) are: WD 7200 RPM 3 Gb/s 3.5 Inch SATA The SAS drives used in the other arrays are: Seagate 15K RPM 6 Gb/s 3.5 inch SAS The RAID controller used is an: LSI 9260-8i SAS/SATA 6 Gb 8 port   Update 2:  Based upon the feedback I've received, it looks like I have the following viable options to choose from - I will award the bounty to someone that can tell me which is likely to be the best in the environment that I've outlined:   Leave everything as is - I probably won't do much better  Move my 2 SAS RAID 1 drives into my existing RAID 10 array to have it composed of 6 disks in total  Move my log files onto the SAS RAID 1 and/or relocate TempDB (data or logs) back to the RAID 10
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I was reading through the hardware requirements of  and it says:     1 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if running on a virtual machine)   Why does running on a VM require more resources?
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What is the minimum RAM needed for a Minecraft server (without using custom servers)? There will be at the most 5 players, the VPS will be OpenVZ.
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We will be running CentOS 7 on our new server. We have 6 x 300GB drives in raid6 internal to the server. (Storage is largely external in the form of a 40TB raid box.) The internal volume comes to about 1.3TB if formatted as a single volume. Our sysadmin thinks it is a really bad idea to install the OS on one big 1.3TB partition.  I am a biologist. We constantly install new software to run and test, most of which lands in /usr/local. However, because we have about 12 non-computer savvy biologists using the system, we also collect a lot cruft in /home as well. Our last server had a 200GB partition for /, and after 2.5 years it was 90% full. I don't want that to happen again, but I also don't want to go against expert advice!  How can we best use the 1.3TB available to make sure that space is available when and where it's needed but not create a maintenance nightmare for the sysadmin??
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We are studying implementing some virtualized servers here, but we don't know what will be better suitable for us. Some folks are saying better have two huge servers, and others are saying have like a ten middle-end servers.  We have a legacy Visual Foxpro application, which nowadays run on Dual Xeon E5405 @ 2GHz and 16Gb of RAM. The currently server its getting too slow due the number of active users and process running on it. Virtualizing this server will give us the benefit of an faster disaster recovery.  So the question is, having like ten physical servers running at 1.7GHz and 4Gb of RAM, we could virtualize one server into 4 machines, and have one virtualized server running at 6.8GHz and 16Gb of memory? If yes, there is some how if one machine stops, automatically manage this virtual machine to another one, and execute the appropriate maintenance on it, and later back to it again?
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I'm currently using a Joyent Accelerator to host my webapps, and it's working fine, however I need to reduce costs so I'm downgrading my current plan and that imposes some new memory limits (256M rss, 512M swap). I wasn't too far over them yesterday, but after restarting Apache several times today, I'm now 411M rss, 721M swap (prstat -Z -s cpu).  Searching in Server Fault only gives me lots of ways and specific tools to monitor the server, but no advice on how to reduce/optimize it's memory usage. I've also seen , but I don't think it's good for this particular (or may I say generic?) situation.  The server is running Solaris on a shared CPU, and I'm using a Apache + MySQL + PHP stack.  I'm interested in knowing the steps one can take to troubleshot this and solve the issues. However, I'm also running out of time to lower my memory foot print and downgrade the plan before the current ends, so anything that can make magic and save the day is welcome as well :)
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I just want to know, what is the difference between ubuntu Minimal, Desktop &amp; Server Editions? How they differ? is it by performance? If yes which one is recommended for a normal user and which one is recommended for a advanced user ?
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I'm looking to build a nice little RAID array for dedicated backups. I'd like to have about 2-4TB of space available, as I have this nasty little habit of digitizing everything. Thus, I need a lot of storage and a lot of redundancy in case of drive failure. I'll also essentially be backing up 2-3 computers' /home folders using one of the "Time Machine" clones for Linux. This array will be accessible over my local network via SSH.   I'm having difficulties understanding how RAID-5 achieves parity and how many drives are actually required. One would assume that it needs 5 drives, but I could be wrong. Most of the diagrams I've seen have only yet confused me. It seems that this is how RAID-5 works, please correct me as I'm sure I'm not grasping it properly:  /---STORAGE---\    /---PARITY----\ |   DRIVE_1   |    |   DRIVE_4   | |   DRIVE_2   |----|     ...     | |   DRIVE_3   |    |             | \-------------/    \-------------/   It seems that drives 1-3 appear and work as a single, massive drive (capacity * number_of_drives) and the parity drive(s) back up those drives. What seems strange to me is that I usually see 3+ storage drives in a diagram to only 1 or 2 parity drives. Say we're running 4 1TB drives in a RAID-5 array, 3 running storage and 1 running parity, we have 3TB of actual storage, but only have 1TB of parity!?  I know I'm missing something here, can someone help me out? Also, for my use case, what would be better, RAID-5 or RAID-6? Fault tolerance is the highest priority for me at this point, since it's going to be running over a network for home use only, speed isn't hugely critical.
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We are beginning to provision a set of physical servers for a virtual cluster of SQL Server 2016 nodes within VMware. We will be utilizing Enterprise Edition licenses.  We plan on setting up 6 nodes, but there is a bit of a debate on what the ideal way to provision the physical servers with regards to CPU clock speed versus CPU core count.  I know this is largely dependent on transaction volume and number of databases stored among other software-specific factors, but is there a general rule of thumb that is advised?  For instance, is a dual 8-core, 3.2 GHz physical server (16 cores) more preferential to a dual 16-core, 2.6 GHz server (32 cores)?  Has anyone come across a white paper that further delves into this type of topic?
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I have to a get a very simple data entry website up and running. This website will be accessed by only a few people at a time (at most), but usually only one person, and not very frequently - maybe a coupel hours at a time, not every day.  I really don't want to pay for hosting if I don't have to. I have AT&amp;T U-Verse Internet Service.   How feasible is it for me to setup a simple Windows/IIS website on my home network that can be accessed publicly? What's the minimum Internet speed I would need? How can make sure that the IP Address for the public website is static, so I can setup my DNS and forget about it?  Any additional thoughts or suggestions on this type of setup would be greatly appreciated. If this is not feasible, or easy, I will likely just go with a hosting service, and I already have one picked out, so I don't need any suggestions for this.
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We're going to host a large SQL Server 2012 under a VMware virtualization and we need it to be highly available.  These are the three options I found supported, but couldn't find a lot of info and comparison on who's better and why (and mostly - what's the disadvantages):   VMware HA - pro: cheap and easy to use and configure, just let the VM team deal with it. con: no HA for system upgrades, e.g. SQL upgrades, Windows services-packs\KBs etc. SQL Server Failover Cluster (FCS) - pro: well known, supported, saves space (compared to AlwaysOn Availability Group), HA for system upgrades. con: I haven't heard of successful clusters over VM, or at least good ones. Heard it's a mess and to "stay away from it". A bit harder to admin, some problems may take days to figure out (no-one with a lot of knowledge). SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Group - pro: HA for everything! system, DB etc. con: New, added administering and hard to confiugre, new problems to deal with, double the space(!), "no strings attached" (to other servers).   That's pretty much it.  I would appreciate any info you may have about this, and would appreciate even more recommendations (hopefully based on test cases).  ~Thanks.
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The drive is constantly filling up. You've hunted down all the spare and random files you can. grep'd for coredump files and even removed some of the un-needed backups...  What would be your next move.  The actual server in question has 10GB of website files and the OS shouldn't take any more than 10GB so how do you track down what's filling a 50GB (virtual) drive?
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This is a "catch-all" question designed to serve as an answer for all questions about choosing web hosting.  Pro Webmasters no longer accepts new questions about how to choose hosting.  All future questions pertaining to finding web hosting should be closed as a duplicate of this question. For more information about this policy please see .    How to find web hosting that meets my requirements?  What we're looking for in answers to this question are the basics about web hosting:   What is web hosting? What is the difference between shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting? How does a content delivery network relate to web hosting? Anything else you feel is helpful in finding a web host.   What we do not want is:   Endorsements or recommendations for specific web hosts We do not want your experience or other subjective information (just the facts please)
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This is the  for "Should I build coomputing hardware myself?" questions.   I have put together countless PCs, but never a large server. The geek in me says build it, but the realist in me says let the manufacturer handle it when there is a problem. Ignoring the time penalty involved with the initial assembly time of a built one, which is a better solution? Have you ever run into a problem with a home build server that would have been solved easier/quicker/cheaper by going with a manufacturer? Are there any features that manufacturers give that aren't easily attainable with a home built server?
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This is a  about Licensing.    Questions on licensing are off-topic on Server Fault.  If your question has been closed as a duplicate of this question, then this is because we want to help you understand why licence questions are off topic rather than just telling you "it just is". In all likelihood, this question will not address your question directly, it was not meant to.    I have a question regarding software licensing. Can the Server Fault community please help with the following:   How many licenses do I need? Is this licensing configuration valid? What CALs do I need to be properly licensed? Can I run this product in a virtual environment? Can I downgrade this product to an earlier version? Am I entitled to feature X with license Y?