Hello and thank you in advance for your help and ideas.
-A little background-
I'm just a desktop tech.. I've always ended up helping with server maintenance and administration due to my willingness to learn and ability to understand. This has given me a lot of knowledge with no real training (Something I've been thinking about getting!!). When I left my comfortable desktop technician job and moved to another state I found this job as a maintenance man/desktop support guy). One day they have asked me to "Fix the internet issues" but what I've found is the need to update...EVERYTHING. After showing the CEO how is private files were available to anyone who could spell his name, the internet issue were suddenly not as important as security and back ups. After 3 days on the job I was promoted to the sole IT guy at a small/mid sized company. I've been tasked with the "Just fix it" directive and I need a little help.
-What is my Plan?-
Were going to buy a server and get things managed, secured, and stored appropriately for around 25 people with room to grow. This includes:
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard running 2 VM's
VM1: Active Directory - Domain, DHCP, DNS,
VM2: File Server/Print server for home directories, Shares, Peach Tree, and Time Clock *No exchange server*
*Note this is step 1 in a long list of changes THIS IS NOT THE END ALL SETUP*
-Whats the Server?- * This is what I'm looking at but nothing is decided*
R710 GenII 8-Port
2x Intel Xeon Quad-Core X5560 2.8GHz 6.4 GT/s 8MB Cache
32GB PC-8500R Quad Ranked DDR3 1066MHz Registered ECC RDIMM Memory (4x 4GB)
Dell H700 6Gbps SAS SCSI RAID Module with 512MB Cache - R374M
2x Dual-Port Embedded Broadcom 5709c Gb NICs - On Board
Broadcom 5709 - Dual Port 1GB Ethernet (Full Height) - PCI
_SO WHAT'S MY QUESTION?_
Right now I'm trying to decide on HDD's and Raid for the server. Is this a good setup/idea versus putting the VM's on one raid 1 and creating volumes or does it matter?
(6) 146GB SAS 15k 3Gbps
(2) for the Host in Raid 1, (2) for VM1 in Raid 1, (2) for VM2 in Raid 1
(2) 2TB SATA 7.2k 6Gbps Enterprise
Raid 1 for file system/applications
Should I run the host on an SD card, saving 2 drives, or is this asking for trouble? If I can run the host on the SD card with no issues, would setting up Raid 5 for the VM's be a better solution?I like Raid 1 for the simplicity and option to plug that drive into any computer and retrieving data. Security isn't much of an issue as the server room is behind 14" of concrete and two independently locked steal doors (Old money Vault and yes it's got Air Conditioning :-).
-Other considerations-
Once this is in place I've got a Poweredge 2900 I can re-purpose (Once I get another copy of Server 2012). I was thinking of using this as a Fail-over or the primary AD,DNS,DHP on VM1 and Backup on VM2
-Thanks-
Thank for dealing with this book I wrote. I promise my responses won't be as long.. I just wanted to make sure I got as much in the Org. as possible to be used as a reference. I'll have more questions I'm sure as like I said this is new territory and I'm excited to be learning..even if it's trial by fire!