Hi All !

I am currently building a mail server but would like to know the best components for a fault tollerant system.

I have chosen the following from experience;

1x 4U P4 ATX Case (2x 300W Redundant)
1x Adaptec RAID Card (13102 ??) (Ultra 2 Wide) (For RAID 1)
1x 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM
1x AMD Athlon 1.33 266MHz SoA
1x Gigabyte GA-7DX+
1x Floppy & CD - ROM Drive
1x Intel Pro/100 Server Adapter
1x Basic AGP Gfx Card
2x 18GB U2W SCSI Disks (For RAID 1)

Not forgetting the basic cooling, a good Cooler Master HSF will probably be used.

OS: Windows 2000 Server (SP-3)
POP3/SMTP Server: Mail Enable
Backup: Veritas NetBackup

I also have a D-Link DFE570TX which I have never used (Its a Quad channel 10/100 Server Card w/ Load Balancing & Fault Tollerance) but isnt required in this entry level server.

Anyone think this would be a kick ass setup ? :angry:

Originally posted by richardparry
Anyone think this would be a kick ass setup ?

Yes.
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If you remove Windows it should be fine.
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Sorry. Couldn't resist. :D

for a mailserver that is overdoing it unless you have A LOT of customers. I mean those are more powerfull then our mailservers and we have like around 30,000 email accounts.

Hey like i always say, better to over do it then under do it. Its a nice setup and you'll be able to scale a lot. If you can afford it might as well go for it.

That doesn't look like an 'entry level' server to me. But that's still not a fault tolerant system. I think it is better if you invest in several smaller systems rather than one single big system if you need fault tolerancy.

Overall, your system would be a kick ass system if you get a better o/s, that is.

Thanx for the replys !

I know it is a little overkill but will be serving many accounts soon, also I dont want to go to bed a think that hundreds of customers email accounts will be lost because of a power supply failure or a disk failure.

RAID is so cheap now, and SCSI RAID is coming down (what I will be using) so its more cost effective in the long run.

I dont think getting more than one mail server is a good idea at the moment, mainly because of the main loophole, the network connection, if that goes down what use is a second server ??

A fault tolerant windows machine? Isn't that an oxymoron? :)

Anyway, service pack 3 is out? I swear I just upgraded my workstation yesterday and they only had 2 out. Is it different for advanced server?

Anyway, service pack 3 is out?Not officially :)

Originally posted by RackMy.com
Not officially :)

Ah. I'm not in the loop. :(

Yeah, you can download the SP3 components from Windows Update, it still says SP2 in My Computer but the updates will be included in the next SP3...

Im using Windows 2000 Server if anyone wants to know....

But that is not all the files that will be included with SP3 (about 65% of them) that are available on the update site.