Server Advice

I have four XP machines on a peer to peer and will be expanding this year.
I am ready to set up a dedicated server. We use, QuickBooks with quite a
few integrated drivers and programs. We also do graphic work in Photoshop
and share spreadsheets, mostly all of the common business apps.
My question is there much of an advantage of having a double processor vs.
single. Also if you could direct me to a good site with tips on setting up
a dedicated server I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
Tim

With such a small company it would not matter how many processors you have.
Sure you may see some performance boost but...

It also sounds like you may be running all your Software on your Local PCs
anyway, and the Server may be just for file storage??? If that is the case,
1 processor is more than enough.

"Tim" wrote:

> I have four XP machines on a peer to peer and will be expanding this year.
> I am ready to set up a dedicated server. We use, QuickBooks with quite a
> few integrated drivers and programs. We also do graphic work in Photoshop
> and share spreadsheets, mostly all of the common business apps.
> My question is there much of an advantage of having a double processor vs.
> single. Also if you could direct me to a good site with tips on setting up
> a dedicated server I would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
>
>

Yes, if using the server only as a Active Directory domain controller and
file & print server, then one CPU is enough, especially if it is a
Hyperthreading P4 or Xeon processor, or a dual-core processor like what most
modern (2004 and later) servers come with.

However, if you ever intend to run an instance of MS SQL Server or Exchange
server upon that same box, then you'd best get two processors and max the
memory out to the full 4GB that Windows 2003 Standard will support. Beware
that some server hardware vendors will only present 3.5GB of that 4GB total
to the Windows Standard 2003 o/s due to the way they reserve about a half
gigabyte of address space for PCI bus special hardware addresses (DMA
reserves???). I found that out the hard way with the HP Proliant ML370G4
server.

The last small network, (about your size), that I set up for a doctor's
office, we chose a Dell Power Edge 1800 with a single CPU because it is the
smallest and least expensive "real server" that supports redundant power
supplies, and we also equipped it with a raid controller disk card and a pair
or mirrored hard drives since PSU's and hard drives are the two most common
hardware failure items and with redundant power and redundant disk storage,
the system will stay up and running with a failure in each area.

We're also running Exchange Server on it (Using Windows SBS 2003 Standard),
and the load is light enough that having only one CPU is not an issue, but we
can always buy a second proccessor and plug it in later if necessary.

"DoktorWho" wrote:

> With such a small company it would not matter how many processors you have.
> Sure you may see some performance boost but...
>
> It also sounds like you may be running all your Software on your Local PCs
> anyway, and the Server may be just for file storage??? If that is the case,
> 1 processor is more than enough.
>
> "Tim" wrote:
>
> > I have four XP machines on a peer to peer and will be expanding this year.
> > I am ready to set up a dedicated server. We use, QuickBooks with quite a
> > few integrated drivers and programs. We also do graphic work in Photoshop
> > and share spreadsheets, mostly all of the common business apps.
> > My question is there much of an advantage of having a double processor vs.
> > single. Also if you could direct me to a good site with tips on setting up
> > a dedicated server I would appreciate it.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Tim
> >
> >
> >