Re: Dell SBS 2003 Standard Installation

Your Dell rep sounds like the rest...no real-world experience.

Straight from Dell's Small Business web site:

PowerEdge 2850
Ideal owner: Businesses with 50 or more employees seeking maximum
performance, storage room, expandability and uptime

The 2850 is one of SIX rackmount models marketed to small businesses.

I've got four rackmounted servers (three of them Dell, one of them a
2850). Plus two more 4u standing up like towers. The rack groans
under the weight of them plus the rackmounted UPSs.

Wait, we small business are allowed to have UPS units, aren't we? And
firewalls? And security cameras? How about a mop for the toilet?

A rackmount server's a damn tool. Doesn't matter the size of the
business.

For heaven's sake, my 2-year old son has a 4u rackmount and a
touchscreen monitor.

Nuts.
--
Alan Leghart


Gregg Hill wrote:
The reason Dell gave me for not supporting it is that "a small business does
not need rack-mount servers" and therefore it is unsupported. I could barley
believe I heard them correctly.

Gregg Hill




"Kevin Weilbacher [SBS-MVP]" <kweilbacMVP@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Oz4HxM$vGHA.3264@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unfortunately, the Dell's startup software does NOT include supporting the
SBS2003 setup CD. Saying that, I moved over a site in May, 2005 to a Dell
PE2850, and it has run flawlessly.

As far as downloading the drivers, it the company you are using does not
lnow SBS, then stop and get someone else. That's ridiculous (or absurd,
stupid, or any other negative word you can think of) that they would
complain about downloading some drivers. It doesn't take 4 hours to do it.

The only drivers they should need are for your Raid and SCSI adaptorss.
You download them, put them on a floppy disk and when you install CD1 you
press F6 at the appropriate time and insert your floppy disks.Now, here's
a gotcha --- the 2850 doesn't come with a floppy drive, so you go down to
your local Compusa/Best Nuy and get yourself an external USB floppy drive.

And, if you intend on keeping this company to do the install, ask if they
have any successful SBS 2003 sites. If they say no, then you insist that
they install tyhe software three times, and provide you documentation as
to what they do and why.

--
Kevin Weilbacher [SBS-MVP]
"The days pass by so quickly now, the nights are seldom long"


"Tim Mills" <Mills@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:unuImw%23vGHA.4872@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Just trying to wrap my head around something...

We currently have a brand new Dell PE2850 server that is having SBS2003
Standard installed on it. The company that is installing it is having
some "unexpected" problems.

*WE* discovered that Dell doesn't support this operating system on this
machine, therefore it doesn't have an entry in the installation list on
the "QUICK START" CD. My understanding is that this CD with pre-install
all the drivers for the system before the Windows installation starts.

The company is now saying that they are having to download *every* driver
the the Dell website since it didn't come with the WIN SBS 2003 drivers.
They have already spent four hours doing the generic installation and are
not finished the core operating system.

So my questions are as follows:

Win2003 drivers are all they need, correct? I wasn't aware that there are
specific SBS 2003 drivers.

Shouldn't they be able to use the "QUICK START" CD as the source for the
drivers instead of downloading every driver from the Dell site?

How long on average does it take to install SBS 2003 standard? I
understand that the size/type of the drives/RAID system will make a
difference but I am thinking that, aside from the hard drive formatting,
1 hour to 1.5 hours should be in the ballpark for the core operating
system stuff. After that maybe an additional 1 hour to 1.5 hours for
driver/Windows updates.
Once everything is current, installation of exchange, etc would be next
at maybe a couple of hours. So by my calculations 5 hours total plus
whatever time to format hard drive/RAID. Sound reasonable?

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks,




.

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