Thursday 10 January 2013

Video: Running Windows Server 2012 Datacenter with Hyper-V on Intel Server System Dual Xeon E5440 and SATA RAID 6

The following video was taken with the new Samsung ATIV S Windows Phone 8 device. The quality is okay with the phone’s focus routine lacking at times.

We had a client server system that needed its life extended for some lab work that they need to accomplish.

The server configuration:

  • Intel Server Board S5000PSLSATAR
  • Dual Intel Xeon E5440 CPUs
  • (8x 2GB) 16GB of Kingston ECC
  • Intel RAID Controller SRCSASRB
  • (8) 500GB Seagate ES series SATA in RAID 6
  • Intel Server Chassis SC5400LX with 10 hot swap bays.

We had to replace the two backplanes as they were ultimately the cause of system boot problems.

Intel Server System running Windows Server 2012 Datacenter

When it comes to setting up production systems we prefer to use only new hardware for new operating systems.

There are so many ways that things can go sideways on us when we do one of the following:

  • Install a modern operating system on 3+ year old hardware.
  • Install an old operating system (2008 or previous) on new hardware.

In this case we are talking about a lab setup. Exception made.

Note that one of the biggest performance limiters in this system is the RAID 6 SATA array. The RAID controller does not have a battery backup on it so write performance is poor.

Plus SATA is not a good platform to install in a server. Period.

Check out this system’s performance in our 130GB VHDX creation time blog post.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

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