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server requirement for a small SolidWorks Enterprise PDM network

Question asked by Alessandro Tufi on Oct 6, 2011
Latest reply on Dec 15, 2011 by Alessandro Tufi

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Hi all,

we are evaluating the S.E. PDM, and we have to choice the server.

Actually we have 4 SW clients (in the future they will be 5), so the "standard" server requirements seem to be too "heavy" to us.

We are thinking to buy only one server for both vault and db; the server will be configured as follow:

- 1 cpu Xeon E5606 Quad Core; future expansion allowed (to max 2 cpu)

- 8Gb Ram Ecc Cas 9; future expansion allowed

- raid 1+0 HW with hd SAS 15K, 300GB for each one.

- 1 Gb networking

Actually we are managing 14500 files in 600 folders; they take about 30Gb

We can't know if it is a good solution, what you think? Do we need the raid 0 with the 15K rpm disks? Other ideas?

Thanks for your help

Regards

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8 Replies

Jeff Sweeney Oct 6, 2011 9:49 PM
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Have you seen this page: http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/PDMSystemRequirements.html These specs are for 20 users.
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- Alessandro Tufi @ Jeff Sweeney on Oct 7, 2011 3:36 AM
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  Yes, I refer to that page as "standard" requirements, but for 4 clients I think is too much: those requirements wants two servers!
  I'm asking advices for only one server.
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  - Jason Capriotti @ Alessandro Tufi on Oct 10, 2011 9:58 AM
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    For 4 users, you should be fine with one server.
    
    We have 3 servers (One SQL and two Archive) but we also have 200 licenses installed on over 500 user's.
    Our SQL server has:
    1x Xeon E5540 Quad Core @ 2.53ghz
    12gb memory (PC3-10700, DDR3, 667mhz)
    Raid 5 SCSI Hard drive (3 drives in Raid) 300GB
    
    Archive servers are similar but with more disk space (500gb Raid 5) and less memory (6gb).
    
    The SQL server is sitting with 8gb of memory currently in use (SQL is using 6.7gb of that). Never really seen go above that. The Archive servers usually have about 1.5gb in use so the 6gb might've been overkill. Since you are using one server for both....you might bump up the memory as its a fairly sheap upgrade.
    
    All run Windows Server 2003 X64
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  - Wayne Matus @ Alessandro Tufi on Oct 10, 2011 12:11 PM
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    One server should be fine for only 4 clients. If you eventually out grow the setup, you can always add a server later.
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Todd Puckett Oct 18, 2011 11:03 AM
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We used one server for many years without any problems with 20+ users and 100 Gb of data.

2 things to consider:
1. When we turned on the indexing service it uses one core of the processor at all times.
2. SQL server 2008 will frequently use more than 8 GB of RAM, I'm sure it would work with less but it can be very memory hungry. Your smaller database may not require as much from SQL. Make sure you get the 64 bit version of MS Server.
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Amos Avery Oct 19, 2011 10:37 AM
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Our contract IT guy gave me these specs for another site after managing our single server installation for 6 months.
1 server with:
24 GB RAM
(2) Quad or Six Core CPUs
SAS Hard Drives, 10K or 15K RPM (15k is preferred when possible)
Battery Backed Write Cache on Array Controller, 512MB Min
Array1 - 3x 146 GB HDD (Min.) - RAID5 - C: - OS Volume, Program Files
Array2 - 3x 146 GB HDD (Min.) - RAID5 - E: - SQL Data Volume, Program Files
Array3 - 2x 146 GB HDD (Min.) - RAID1 - F: - Mirror set for SQL transaction logs

Hope this helps.
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- Todd Puckett @ Amos Avery on Oct 19, 2011 11:51 AM
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  Amos,
  Are these specs for a server hosting the EPDM archive and database server?
  
  Will this proposed server for your other site be hosting a different vault?
  
  Your IT guy has alloted considerable disk space for items that use very little space.
  
  We have 3 vaults totalling 1 TB on our archive server. Our database server requires less than 70 GB disk space. This includes OS, Program Files, SQL Data files <includes SQL transaction logs> (10GB), index catalog files (15GB) , swap file (10GB).
  
  If this proposed server is only running EPDM database server then it's overkill. Ours rarely uses all 4 processor cores and usually uses between 5 and 8 GB RAM.
  
  If its also running the archive server the drive arrays should be configured to maximize availble space for vault growth.
  Array1 - 3x 146 GB HDD (292 GB) - RAID5 - C: - OS Volume, Program Files, SQL Data Volume
  Array2 - 5x 146 GB HDD (584 GB) - RAID5 - E: - Archive server data volume.
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Alessandro Tufi Dec 15, 2011 12:03 PM
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Thanks for all your answers.

We have only four clients, and about 30Gb of files, so we are trying with the initial specs, except for the memory:

- 1 cpu Xeon E5606 Quad Core; future expansion allowed (to max 2 cpu)
- 12Gb Ram Ecc Cas 9; future expansion allowed
- raid 1+0 HW with hd SAS 15K, 300GB for each one.
- 1 Gb networking

Obviously the initial "experiments" with few drawings seem working fine.

I'll let you know if it will be not enough
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