Hardware for FMS?

[Saubs]

Hello all,

I'm trying to find out about recommended hardware on which to deploy FileMaker Server 10. Small business here, 10 users on the LAN, 5 more accessing via WAN, 6 hosted databases, no web publishing yet, fast internet connection, routers doing NAT. Here goes:

-Is the newest state-of-the-art Xserve recommended, or have you folks had success with an older machine like a G5 tower or first-gen MacPro?

-Would a high-end PC desktop machine running Vista or XP Pro do the job well? For example...?

-I read a while ago that 10,000 rpm SCSI drives are recommended for FMS. Is that still the case and if so, how do I connect a SCSI drive to a SATA-equipped computer? Are we talking about a PCI controller card connected to external SCSI drives?

I realize fmf is meant to be about FileMaker software, so thank you for allowing me to sneak in this hardware question.

All the best--

[IdealData]

I have Xserve G5 supporting 30+ LAN users and 50 DBs - runs fine for us.

Did you consider remote hosting, or possibly co-location? With a 10:5 ratio of LAN:WAN users, and the fact you have a fast internet (20Mb+ ?) you would all be running at the same speed - no hardware to buy, no FMS to buy, no management required.

Edited October 15, 2009 by Guest

[John May - Point In Space]

If you are looking at remote hosting as an option, we offer both shared hosting accounts and virtual & hardware dedicated servers supporting FileMaker:

http://www.pointinspace.com/

We've been providing professional FileMaker hosting for over 10 years now. Feel free to contact me here or offlist at jmay(at)pointinspace.com if you have any additional questions after reviewing our materials. Thanks!

- John May

[Steven H. Blackwell]

When you order your machine have SAS drives substituted for the default SATA drives. The hard drive subsystem is exceptionally important for good server performance.

Steven

[vladisglad]

I think any generation MacPro would serve you just fine, even a late era G5 tower would be fine. 15 users doesn't necessarily warrant an xserve. Fast drives are good, ideally you want to have an external raid of fast disks for your active files to reside on. Whichever machine you use you don't want to go with less than 4 GB of ram. I haven't used FMS on any windows based machine so I can't comment. But reliability and ease of OS X must be considered.

Good luck.