At the beginning of this month I got curious about upgrading my server. What is a problem to some people is a curious lab test for others. Since the parts are inexpensive I opted to try two different options, add a second cpu and add memory. I guessed that I would get the most bang for my buck by upgrading the memory since my server had a minimum amount of memory for a server, 576K. I ran a baseline test to document my starting point. It complained about the queue length on the one cpu. Cpu utilization was low and the paging was okay.
I bought both parts from Ebay and they arrived last week. I put both the memory and the cpu into the server last week but had to immediately remove the memory. Despite my best efforts to get inexpensive but compatible memory, the memory I bought conflicted with my existing memory. The second cpu worked flawlessly. I was surprised to notice an immediate impact, the login process went much quicker. I ran another baseline test and it said everything was fine. The queue length problem was gone. Exchange and SQL slowness appear to be gone. For the fifty bucks I spent adding a second cpu is a winner. I may still buy an additional 512K but I think I have a new insight on SBS hardware requirements. Memory is still very important but CPU power is much more important than I originally thought. Having two cpu’s is probably a very good idea for something like SBS which runs Exchange and SQL on the same server.