ROUGHLY how much faster will increased RAM make the server run?

Running
- Window Server 2003 (all latest patches).
- Office 2003 (incl heavy use of msAccess)
- 10 users (with roaming profiles)
- (Also all data stored on the server)


Hi

I have just discovered that the server is running on just
512MB of RAM (!!).


The problem we have more or less ZERO CASH in the company (!)and
somehow I now have is how to convince the boss to upgrade the RAM -
he wants to know what the ROI would be!
i.e. How long would it take to pay for itself?

Costs:
Apparently the 512MB needs to come out.
We have then been quoted "£85 per 1 GB" of RAM (as DDR 333 ECC RAM
Modules) plus a flat fee of £69 to install it.
Our suppliers are suggesting 3 GB (do we REALLY need all that RAM
or would 1 or 2 GB do?)

Calculation of ROI?
So... If the cost of employing someone is call it £35K, how long would
it take for whatever we do to pay for itself?

Any thoughts?

Cheers


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. And until I can produce a firm/reasonably credible ROI, the boss
is refusing to upgrade! :[

 

What problesms are you seeing that increasing memory would fix? Are they
running Office from the server?

I've been in places where the site had 30 to 40 users, printers and user
data served from a DC that was a Celeron with 512MB of RAM running Win 2k3
and had no complaints.

If they are that strapped for money, now might not be the time to spend just
because 512MB of RAM seems low. Are the users complaining?


hth
DDS

"ship" <shiphen@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3a694e9e-e516-4d96-9aed-e2c20aa1dd6d@c14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
Running
- Window Server 2003 (all latest patches).
- Office 2003 (incl heavy use of msAccess)
- 10 users (with roaming profiles)
- (Also all data stored on the server)


Hi

I have just discovered that the server is running on just
512MB of RAM (!!).


The problem we have more or less ZERO CASH in the company (!)and
somehow I now have is how to convince the boss to upgrade the RAM -
he wants to know what the ROI would be!
i.e. How long would it take to pay for itself?

Costs:
Apparently the 512MB needs to come out.
We have then been quoted "£85 per 1 GB" of RAM (as DDR 333 ECC RAM
Modules) plus a flat fee of £69 to install it.
Our suppliers are suggesting 3 GB (do we REALLY need all that RAM
or would 1 or 2 GB do?)

Calculation of ROI?
So... If the cost of employing someone is call it £35K, how long would
it take for whatever we do to pay for itself?

Any thoughts?

Cheers


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. And until I can produce a firm/reasonably credible ROI, the boss
is refusing to upgrade! :[

 

ship wrote:<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
> Running
> - Window Server 2003 (all latest patches).
> - Office 2003 (incl heavy use of msAccess)
> - 10 users (with roaming profiles)
> - (Also all data stored on the server)<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->




And what does the Server 2003 say.. is it needing resources?
CPU average utilization
RAM average utilization

Disk I/O utilization


Are you experiencing delays?


<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
>
>
> Hi
>
> I have just discovered that the server is running on just
> 512MB of RAM (!!).
>
>
> The problem we have more or less ZERO CASH in the company (!)and
> somehow I now have is how to convince the boss to upgrade the RAM -
> he wants to know what the ROI would be!
> i.e. How long would it take to pay for itself?
>
> Costs:
> Apparently the 512MB needs to come out.
> We have then been quoted "£85 per 1 GB" of RAM (as DDR 333 ECC RAM
> Modules) plus a flat fee of £69 to install it.
> Our suppliers are suggesting 3 GB (do we REALLY need all that RAM
> or would 1 or 2 GB do?)
>
> Calculation of ROI?
> So... If the cost of employing someone is call it £35K, how long would
> it take for whatever we do to pay for itself?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Cheers
>
>
> Ship
> Shiperton Henethe
>
> P.S. And until I can produce a firm/reasonably credible ROI, the boss
> is refusing to upgrade! :[
>
>
> <!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->


--
This posting is provided for you, from a fellow community member. Use
at your own risk.

 

"ship" <shiphen@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3a694e9e-e516-4d96-9aed-e2c20aa1dd6d@c14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
> Running
> - Window Server 2003 (all latest patches).
> - Office 2003 (incl heavy use of msAccess)
> - 10 users (with roaming profiles)
> - (Also all data stored on the server)
>
>
> Hi
>
> I have just discovered that the server is running on just
> 512MB of RAM (!!).
>
> The problem we have more or less ZERO CASH in the company (!)and
> somehow I now have is how to convince the boss to upgrade the RAM -
> he wants to know what the ROI would be!
> i.e. How long would it take to pay for itself?
>
> Costs:
> Apparently the 512MB needs to come out.
> We have then been quoted "£85 per 1 GB" of RAM (as DDR 333 ECC RAM
> Modules) plus a flat fee of £69 to install it.<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

Looking on eBay, you should be able to pick up RAM at half what you've been
quoted. Also, are you or anyone in your office confident to fit it? In the
overall scheme of things its not much money you are talking about but if
money is tight then you should be able to halve it.
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
> Our suppliers are suggesting 3 GB (do we REALLY need all that RAM
> or would 1 or 2 GB do?)<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

It does depend on what your server is being used for. We have two 2003
servers in the office both originally with 512MB, both worked and no-one
complained but some things were slow. Upgrading both to 2GB did improve the
overall responsiveness of both servers. I also manage a 2003 SBS server with
2GB RAM.

Personally I'd recommend 2GB. If you want to go for 3GB then its worth
checking that the motherboard will take it, the SBS server I look after is
at 2GB because its on an old motherboard which doesn't support more. Crucial
do a scanner on their website which will look at your motherboard and tell
you what it will support, if there is any doubt about what the board will
support then I'd advocate you use that.

But to be realistic, if you are using the server for nothing other than as a
file server (no exchange, no databases) then perhaps it is managing. As a
guide its worth having a look at task manager, how does the page file usage
compare with your available RAM? I feel more comfortable if your available
RAM equals or exceeds your page file usage, but this is only my rule of
thumb.

You may find that some users won't notice the performance difference if you
take your server from 512MB of RAM to 2GB, but I'm sure most would notice
the slow down if you moved from 2GB to 512MB.
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
> Calculation of ROI?
> So... If the cost of employing someone is call it £35K, how long would
> it take for whatever we do to pay for itself?<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

Very difficult one to answer.

I would imagine that at the moment your server is thrashing a lot, so by
adding more RAM you may be increasing the life of the server as well as
making it faster.

Perhaps the way to start is (as Tim Judd mentioned in his post) to identify
where you are experiencing delays. This in turn can be tricky because delays
might be down to your network rather than the server. But if you are after a
way of calculating ROI then I think the only way you are going to be able to
do that is to come up with some time saving.

If it helps, then remember that more memory will help with almost everything
the server does, so potentially:
- reduce logon times
- faster file serving (both opening and saving files - and ms-access is very
heavy on file accesses)
- faster dns (so faster browsing)
but of course this does assume that the box is currently paging a lot.
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
> Any thoughts?<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

Hope it helps. Hope you get the upgrade.
--
Brian Cryer