Advantages/disadvantages

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Destonomos

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 13, 2004
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I'm relatively new to the actual buisness side of Networking as I graduate in 2 semesters from college and I'm doing my intern this summer for email at the 3rd largest bank security company in the US.

My question is this. I was thinking of buying some router equip for my home and wanted to know the advantages/disadvantages of going with a rack mounted server with 4 hotswap drives vs just a large tower PC with a ton of internal sata drives with Server 2003 on it.
 
Generally there isn't a hardware advantage to one vs. the other. However, the reason I've gone with rack mount vs. tower in my house is because of space. I can keep adding servers and not take up any additional floor space. Racks do usually cost a little more.
 
Do racks usually limit harddrive space because I was planning on running a server to backup everything and to run things and then a NAS to file serve but a rack server seems like I'm limited with 4 or so harddrives (total of 4 TB?). Would just a rack server be sufficient at doing network storage and backup all in one? I was trying to think of some other things I could setup on the server that would be nice but I'm having trouble thinking of something outside of backup and file serving.
 
Destonomos said:
Do racks usually limit harddrive space because I was planning on running a server to backup everything and to run things and then a NAS to file serve but a rack server seems like I'm limited with 4 or so harddrives (total of 4 TB?). Would just a rack server be sufficient at doing network storage and backup all in one? I was trying to think of some other things I could setup on the server that would be nice but I'm having trouble thinking of something outside of backup and file serving.
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It depends on the hardware you use. If you need more space then you can look at larger servers (multiple U servers). Towers are usually limited to 4 or so drives as well. To get more you have to go to specific setups...same with rack servers. Like I said, hardware-wise, there isn't a huge advantage one way or the other.
 
I'm just wanting to setup a system to file serve and backup stuff. I hate getting things and then having to delete them... IE I start ripping some dvd's and then once space gets bad I have to delete stuff. To me that should never have to happen. A server running 4 TB would be 4000gigs minus about 4.5gigs per movie/season dvd would be around 888 movies / shows which I guess seems ok because I'll loose some space after the file systems are put on the drives and OS installed and then software on the server after that.

I've had a ton of hacked OS's in the past but once I came to college I got a legit copy of Windows XP Pro for my PC and since then I've kinda lost my "want" of pirating software. I'd rather save up and buy it now to try and stay legit (the inner network admin in me). Thats my major at college btw.

I think I'm going to buy this stuff within the next 2 years to try and get setup with systems and get familiar with them.

I'm thinking a 2800 series router for the home and a Cisco firewall and a catalyst switch for the home and a server installed with a linux OS on it.

Then a seperate network for lab purposes. I'm thinking I'll get a 2600 series and 2 catalyst switches for that. I'm thinking about 5 laptops (some cheapo ones) and then run Windows Server on one, XP on 2, Redhat on another, and Vista on the last one (last one being my GF's laptop after she gets her new one).

I figure that will work and once I get my CCNA with the 2600 series I could swap them out and put the 2600 on my home network and then use the 2800 series to go a little further with my knowledge.
 
You should look at virtualization for some of what your doing. It's easy to work with, what everyone is going to be looking at, and will save you money on less systems and less power usage.
 
Yeah I was talking to a co-worker here but the problem with the virtualization is that you have to tab through all the windows and I hate having to do that. If I was to go that route I would still setup 1 pc and then try to run mulitple monitors and at the prices I was going to spend on the laptops (200ish) I guess I could save a few hundred.
 
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