$500 server

[EmergeTW]

I have not kept up with hardware as of late and I am looking to spend about $500 on a server. I am doing research but there is so much to catch up on. I was wondering if some of you could help guide me in the right direction on this purchase.

I definately want to run raid5 I would prefer to go scsi because I would like hot-swapable drives. However IDE would not kill me.

Dual cpu or greater. would it be possible to run dual amd 64 3200? Or would there be a better alternative?

What motherboard should I look at?

What case should I look at? I would like to get a rack mountable case and I would like to go dual/redundant powersupply.

I dont care about audio or video in this box.

And yes I understand ebay and pricewatch are my friend.

Thanks for the help!

EmergeTW

 

[blixkin]

you dont have enough money for one amd64 let alone two

 

[EmergeTW]

on pricewatch I can get a amd64/motherboard combo for 375, though I do not object to using a Athlon MP or XP. I just want the best for $500. Not $500 retail value, but $500 "holy crap that's a good deal" kind of $500.

 

[EnderW]

Are you wanting a complete system for $500? or just the cpu/mobo?

 

[EmergeTW]

A complete system. However, if it need be I can do it in chuncks. And spend maybe close to $500 on just the 1st chunk.

1) Motherboard/CPU's, memory
2) hard disks/controller card
3) case

At this point I think I have ditched the idea of amd64's. It looks like it is between dual Athlon XP's and dual Pentium 4 with hyperthreading

 

[weezer]

may I ask what you are going to be using this for?

most people vastly overestimate their needs

esp. with your 500 dollar limit (that just cpu/mobo?)

 

[EmergeTW]

Alright, it seems I am a bit to far behind to express exactly what I am looking for to recieve help from yall at the moment. Thank you for the replies though. I am going to just spend a couple days reading and catching up on some of the pluses and minus of different hardware then post a couple of spec systems for yall to help me to decide from.

Thanks

EmergeTW

 

[RS3RS]

Yeah, I think dual Opterons (or A64's as you call them) are a little bit out of your price range... Dual Athlon XP's might work, but I think 500 dollars is a little low for a complete dual processor system...

 

[weezer]

Originally posted by RS3RS
Yeah, I think dual Opterons (or A64's as you call them) are a little bit out of your price range... Dual Athlon XP's might work, but I think 500 dollars is a little low for a complete dual processor system...

he could do it buying used, but not with scsi.

thread starter:

www.2cpu.com

anandtech also has some good IT reviews (somewhat outdated but for $500 you can't really afford top of line)


http://www.anandtech.com/it/index.html

(sorry Kyle... but you just don't do IT reviews.)

 

[dagamore]

500 USD is a damn low limit for a dual system at all, but it can be done if you dont mind old mb/ and slow (i.e. sub 800 mhz chips) and i dont see any way but ebay to get 3 scsi drives for 500 usd. you would need 3 drives for raid 5 (keep in mind you need atleast 1 non raided drive for boot (because you cant boot off raid 5(IIRC)))

so lets see you want a dual AMD 64 (read opteron) MB
Ram
4 HD (atleat 3 scsi)
Raid SCSI card
Case
PSU (need quality 400 watt or better server PSU)
Video
OS (linux if you want free os, but raid support in linux is tricky to setup )

I just dont see it happening.

the cheapest dual opteron MB i could find at newegg is the
Thunder K8W (S2885ANRF) and it is 436 alone
then add in 2 of the 2XX chips the cheap ones from sonic pc are
190.9 each

thats with out any memmory case or anything, just the MB and 1 cpu is 626.9 (with out shipping/tax/whatnot)

 

[Jeff]

well. Since you have not been in the upto date computers for a while. You might not have realized that computers now have become MUCH faster. A dual cpu computer computer WILL get smoked by a high end single chip computer now.

Do what i do for my server. And it is more than fast enough for what i do. Fileserver, Printserver, Webserver,FTP, email, DNS, Firewall, Router, wireless accesspoint, HPNA network bridge. My server is used for so much stuff and the cpu is not even being stressed at all.

First off. $500 for a Dual cpu comp? haha
$500 for a very fast dual cpu comp? LOL

Anyways, Ill try to be helpful. Here are my server specs.

AthlonXP+2500 OC to XP+3200 (Make sure you stress the hell out of the cpu for a few days and confirm the stability of the oc. That is, if you plan on oc your server) the most annyoing thing is when the server goes down. In my case everything in the house gets cut off. Most any AthlonXP+2500 is pretty much able to hit XP3200 with minimal voltage increases and stock cooling. Get the retail box its around $90 if you look around.

Motherboard: ABIT NF7-S v2.0: It is a kick ass borad. Unbeatable if you ask me. My server has been up for 6 months straight. Only time it rebooted was when the power went out. Other than that. Perfect operating record with zero freezes. about $90 if you shop around.

Ram: Regular 512mb of PC3200 ram will do fine. You dont really need the expensive stuff unless you are going to extreme oc. But thats not recommended for a server. Btw: dont get the absolutely crappiest ram. Just get something decent but not extravagant. You dont need fancy platinum or copper heatspreaders in a server thats tucked away in the corner. You also might want to get a dual channel kit but that cost a bit more. Newegg is one of the best online companies. They sell a ram branded PMI and that stuff works great and its cheap too. Cost for PMI pc3200 512mb....about $80

Vid card: Just use the crappiest one. Or even an old pci card from the attic. In my case the server sits in the corner and does nothing but serve. If i need to login and change stuff, i just do a remote desktop login. Cost $0 old card

Case/powersupply: $50 dont waste your money on making it look fancy, save that for the computer you show off.

CD or DVD or Burner: you choose. In my case i just used a spare dvd-rom 16x. Cost $25

Heatsink for cpu: $0 its included in the retail AthlonXP packaging along with a 3yr warranty

Sound and Network card: $0 its built into the Abit NF7 Motherboard.

Up to this point you have everything covered and you have only spent $335. And the comp is indeed a very fast one. Although it is not Dual cpu. It is very fast. Trust me, I have 3 comps with the same configuration. With the best one hitting 2.55Ghz!! Even if you run the cpu at the stock XP2500 speed it is still plenty fast for most server tasks.

Ok, now you got $170 left to spend on hard drives.
You have several options.
a) get one big 200GB Western digital hd 7200rpm 8mb cache which is about $150
b)get a Western digital Raptor 10,000rpm 36.7gb drive. Those are godly fast for an ATA based drive. Cost $115

either way you choose you will have a little cash left to play with. I recommend you to get the raptor and save up then get another hard drive and start building up from there. Thats what i did in my server. I started off with a 40gb 7200rpm westerndigital drive. Then added a 160gb. Then i added 4 more 200gb. Over about on year period I have achieved my goal of 1TeraByte

Well anyways. I wish you luck to you and your future server. The specs i have listed here will get you a pretty damn good server for under $500.

Who said it wasnt possible.

Remember, i didnt say a good dual was possible for that price.

 

[Jeff]

i forgot to change the top...

i said a dual cpu comp will get smoked by a single.
i was referring to an old dual system. Like a dual p3 or something like that.

I dont want anyone to think i meant a dual opteron would get smoked by an athlonxp

But if you are here in the forum you wouldnt have such thoughs anyways