Ideal hardware for FM Server 5

October 3, 200322 yr

Greetings all,

I have been asked to build a new FMP Server box to replace our aging current server. I have read the FMP Server best practice PDF offered on filemaker.com but sill would like to have your hands-on-based opinions:

Keep in mind that our organization has about 10 users requiring local FMP access, 20 users requiring access through Terminal Service (almost equivalent to local access). We also serve part of our database system for public access (only search access, no editing) through Custom Web Publishing but we only get a couple hundreds of database hits a day. We currently own FMP Server 5.0, FileMaker Pro 5.0 Unlimited and FileMaker Pro 5.0 and would like to avoid upgrading.

Brand name computer or not:

We were considering having a "clone" computer built by a little company that was recommended to us, we would be specifying the parts we want leaving models and brands in the hands of the builders. This would save us some $ but "clones" are also known to be less reliable than brand name computer that have been extensively tested for compatibilty. Question #1: Is it really worth the extra $ to have a Dell or some other brand name computer ?

HD system:

We will at least be using SCSI Ultra Wide. Is a RAID system really worth it considering the number of users ? RAID 5 or 10 ? Otherwise, is it really worth it to seperate the OS from the data ? Is it worth it to do so with 2 HD instead of 2 partition ? Any suggestion of brands and models for the HD/Controller system ?

The FMP Best Proactice speaks of a Cache Controller... Is this a good idea given our situation ? Suggestion of brand names/model ?

NIC:

Is it worth it to have an Ethernet Channel ? Is it worth it to have 2 NICs ? Our entire network is on 100T, would there be any advantages to getting a 1000T NIC for the server ? We would definitely go for a good brand name NIC (Intel or 3Com), any model recommendation ?

Processor:

We are thinking of a fast Pentium 4 or Athlon... any suggestion ? comments ?

RAM:

We are thinking 512MB of fast DDR RAM. any suggestion ? comments ?

OS:

We would like to use XP Pro so that we can remotely access the server should we need to. Is Win2000 server better ? I know that FileMaker 5.0 is not "XP compatible" but we are using FMP Pro 5.0 and FMP Unlimited 5.0 right now on XP Pro and Home and it seems to work fine. Although, our FMP Server is running on 2000 Server... Any problem between XP Pro and FMP Server 5.0 ?

Also....our entire organization is working on PCs... but we have G4 400mhz running Mac OS 10.2 that could be used to run sever.... it's equipped with 2 IDE controller and a bunch of SDRAM. I know that FileMaker Pro doesn't care if FMP Server is on a Mac or PC... is the G4 a good candidate for our purpose ?

Thank you all for your precious opinions.