Ancient Server Fails: Tech Fixes on a Budget!

One of my regular clients called this morning complaining that her plot printer was not connecting to her file server. A plot printer is used to print out blueprints.

She sent me screenshots of the various error messages she was getting:

I went into the back printer room to take a look at the server.

Server Room

Upon inspection, I found the server was a Windows 2003 Server—ancient and still using PS/2 ports.

Server Back

She had tried different monitors without success; the onboard video, reliable for 23 years, had stopped working. The server's PCI slot wasn't compatible with a modern video card.

Server PCI Slot

Given the server's age and condition, I suggested a replacement. The fans blew air, and the hard drives seemed to spin up, but with no display, it was essentially unusable. The client needed immediate access to scan and print blueprints from the plot printer. All of the client's previous works (blueprint scans) was locked up in the extra hard drives of the server. Also, the clients was unable to get scans from the plot scanner back to their computers. The scanner was set to automatically save to the server. Since it was not working, the scans errored out.

Plot Printer

To quickly resolve the issue, I set up a shared folder on the owner’s computer as a destination for the plot printer’s scans. I configured the owner’s wife’s computer to access this share, allowing both to print and access blueprints seamlessly.

I presented the costs of a new Windows Server suitable for their business:

Microsoft Windows Server 2022 User CAL | Client Access Licenses | 5 pack | OEM - $239.99
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HPE ProLiant ML30 Gen10 Tower Server, Intel Xeon E-2124 Quad-Core 3.3GHz 8MB, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 8TB Storage, RAID, iLO 5, Windows 2019 - $2,156.20
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HP ProLiant ML30 Gen10 Tower Server, Intel Xeon E-2124 Quad-Core 3.3GHz 8MB, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 8TB Storage, RAID, iLO 5, Windows 2016 - $2,999.00
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Realizing that the cost was prohibitive, I proposed an alternative. Since the owner and his wife work as a team without additional employees, they don’t require the extensive permissions setup of a Windows Server. Servers features are required to layer the access and permissions of large groups of employees. Their workgroup doesn’t need complex rules of a server for user access and management.

Their main concern is preventing outside attacks. Each computer was previously configured with security permissions in place to prevent outside attacks.

Given the urgency, we prioritized retrieving data from the old server’s hard drives. Both the owner and wife’s computers already had secondary drives from their previous systems for data transfer. I suggested using a USB external hard drive dual bay to connect the server drives as secondary drives, allowing access and resharing of folders on the network.

FIDECO Hard Drive Docking Station, USB 3.0 SATA HDD Docking Station for 2.5 & 3.5 inch SATA HDD/SSD, Dual Bay, Support Offline Clone and UASP - $25.99
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The hub is connected to one of the computers, and both computers plus the plot-printer's Windows 10 computer communicate via network shares.

The final task was to re-image the wife's old computer with a clean Windows 10 image, then install the print drivers for the mylar printer, and connect it to the next work.

Ancient Server Fails: Tech Fixes on a Budget!

The overall costs of a replacement server for Windows just seemed too cost prohibitive given the lack of complexity of the system. If other non-married employees were using the network, or if the business dealt with financial records or medical records, then a Server would have been appropriate. The layers of security and permissions would have been worth the $3000 price tag for the hardware, alone.

The solution I provide was cost-effective, solved the problem with minimal changes to the clients environments and systems, and was quick. There was little down time for the client. No need for a length install and configuration of Windows Server, just a quick swap of some olf hard drives, and the client was back in business.

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