Help Building an homemade server

GodLovesYou · Mar 17, 2017

Hey guys!

So I have an old computer with 2 GB of RAM and an Hard Drive with 500 GB. I want to use it as a Server to run SQL Sever Express with Windows 7 to store my Database there and install Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 or 2017. Do you think it's a good idea? Could you give me some ideas about it?

Thank you and have a nice day.

lunatic59 · Mar 17, 2017

MSSQL is a memory hog. I wouldn't consider running on anything with less that 16GB ... 32 preferrable. And While SQL isn't that processor intensive, it drags to a crawl if you have "desktop" performance disks. You should have at least 7200 r.p.m. enterprise class drives, preferably in a RAID 5 or 10 setup.

That said, you might be able to get it installed if you just want to play around with it.

Unforgiven · Mar 17, 2017

Raid 5 (striping and redundancy) or Raid 10 (striping, mirroring, & redundancy) seem a little excessive for a homebrew server. Wouldn't Raid 0 (striping) be sufficient for the speed boost? I know SQL is an IO hog, but if its just a homebrew server I'm guessing we aren't talking terabyte database either.

lunatic59 · Mar 17, 2017

You really need the disk performance for any type of SQL. RAID 0 would give it to you but without the redundancy you're asking for trouble with a SQL server which puts a much higher load on the drive array than, say an HTTP or application server.

I wouldn't do it, even for a home brew (which I have ... two, actually.

)

lunatic59 · Mar 17, 2017

I don't know if I'm reading too much into the original post but I got the impression he wanted to see if it was possible to build a SQL server out of the bits and pieces laying about. He didn't want to put anything extra into it.

If the data he's going to be storing is of any value, I wouldn't do it with a low ram, single disk rig.

GodLovesYou · Mar 17, 2017

Thank you all for the replys. Basically I am not able to use this old computer with Sql Server Express to store my database

Have a great day!

GodLovesYou · Mar 17, 2017

rootabaga said:
While I agree with you in principle, 2GB of ram isn't going to be functional for very much when you consider he's talking about having a Server OS, SQL (even express) as well as Visual Studio. After waiting a half-hour for it to boot up, it will be really, really slow to respond, and that's before he actually stuffs any data into the database.
Even just to play with it would be more frustrating and dysfunctional than most people would put up with.

This computer has Windows 7 and I want to run inside of it SQL Server Express and if it's possible Visual Studio.

lunatic59 · Mar 17, 2017

I was looking up the minimum requirements for SQL Express and found you can now run a SQL server on Linux! (Redhat 7/CentOS 7 or Ubuntu 14). I might have to give that a try.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-vnext-including-Linux

GodLovesYou · Mar 17, 2017

lunatic59 said:
I was looking up the minimum requirements for SQL Express and found you can now run a SQL server on Linux! (Redhat 7/CentOS 7 or Ubuntu 14). I might have to give that a try.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-vnext-including-Linux

I would like to use Windows instead of Linux. Is that possible?

lunatic59 · Mar 17, 2017

GodLovesYou said:
I would like to use Windows instead of Linux. Is that possible?

MS SQL Server was always Windows based. If you look at the requirements on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54284 You'll see they've dropped support for Windows 7 with the 2016 edition. You'll either need to find a copy of the 2014 edition or upgrade your OS.

Davdi · Mar 17, 2017

Visual Studio Community edition needs to be run on a 'Professional' version of Windows (VS 2015 requires Win10Pro before it even installs) An express edition MAY install on win7, but you're going to need at least 8GB RAM for it to run at anything other than an absolute crawl.

I'm running VS2015 Community Edition on a Core i7 box with 16GB and a 256GB SSD. I REALLY wouldn't consider VS on anything less than a core i5/8GB (Still with the SSD)

Help Building an homemade server

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