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Building Server. Recommendations?

S

Station

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 26, 2003
Messages
95
I am going to be building a server.

This is not going to be used for gaming or any programs. It's going to host my website and files for download online.

I would like recommendations for:

Motherboard
Processor
Cards?
Heat Sink
Case
Hard Drives (Western Digital or Maxtor?)

(I also hear any HD over 120 gigs is known to have problems or something. Is this true?)
 
If I were to build a quick server for some web hosting I would build the following



Pentium 4 2.4C retail (stock cooling is fine)
intel 875 desktop board with onboard raid
1024mb corsair/crucial memory (DDR333 at least)
Two Western Digital 80gb's special editions in raid 1
case, some antec or enermax (mainly care about the psu)


and either windows 2003 server or windows 2000 server (msft admin heh)
 
I would buy Crucial RAM.

and as for the 80 gig HDs. I am going to be hosting pretty big files and a lot of them.

How many HD slots are in a usual server case?
 
Originally posted by Station
I would buy Crucial RAM.

and as for the 80 gig HDs. I am going to be hosting pretty big files and a lot of them.

How many HD slots are in a usual server case?
Click to expand...


my servers have hot swap scsi bays, however I did just build a basic file server for myself, it has 4 hd bays IIRC (antec sonata, good little case)




80gb not big enough? then go 120gb, however go raid 1, you will be really kicking yourself in the head when a hd dies if your not redundant
 
My friend suggested 3 HDs.
1 with just the operating system
2 others of the same size with the files

I have a spare 30 gig I don't use, so that would save me a bit of money and I wouldn't have to put the OS on a bigger HD.

To quote him: "I would load the OS on the 30 Gig a long with the programs you want to run on the server, and just use you other drives as files storage. Easer to secure that way"

"the 2 that are the same size but in a RAID config and leave the other one alone"
 
Originally posted by Station
My friend suggested 3 HDs.
1 with just the operating system
2 others of the same size with the files

I have a spare 30 gig I don't use, so that would save me a bit of money and I wouldn't have to put the OS on a bigger HD.

To quote him: "I would load the OS on the 30 Gig a long with the programs you want to run on the server, and just use you other drives as files storage. Easer to secure that way"

"the 2 that are the same size but in a RAID config and leave the other one alone"
Click to expand...


problem is, if your os drive goes down, does goes the machine.


if this is for personal use, and not tons of traffic from multiple sources, then having the OS on the same drive as the web stuff is fine. I do that for the rage3d webserver at the moment (although we have a dedicated database and mail server as well) and its fine.


if you want to keep the OS seperate, then you would want 4 hd's, 2 raid 1 arrays
 
p4 2.4c
865g chipset board with onboard lan
2x256mb kingston or crucial memory
10/100 nic (for redundancy)
ata-133 raid card
2x160gb hard drive mirrored

that's for if you're just building it for web and stuff for yourself

single processor xeon boards come out 1q 04

you could look at a a64 system also

just get onboard video and onboard lan (you don't need good graphics for just webpages)
 
Well, I'll be hosting about 200-700mb files for download by various people. Not sure if it will become a popular download spot or not.

If this is any help, I just tested my download/upload speed.
Download - 2819 kbps
upload - 349 kbps

I plan to subscribe to a completely new cable line, so there will be a full line dedicated to the server.

(I guess I'll have to figure out how to write the script to make a line for downloads @_@)
 
I've run into a problem.

The case I want (an Enermax) doesn't come with a power supply.
What should I get? a 400 or a 500?
 
Originally posted by Station
I've run into a problem.

The case I want (an Enermax) doesn't come with a power supply.
What should I get? a 400 or a 500?
Click to expand...

400w is plenty big enough. Get an Antec 430w or a Fortron 400w.
 
for what you are asking I would go with a bulk-bought out of warranty pulled from an office upgrade gateway-dell-compaq p2-p3 for about 40 dollars or so. Go to www.clarkconnect.org and download their home server package.

Since your upload is in the 384 kb range and this is mainly an ftp-apache box you will not need to arm yourself to handle slashdot type traffic.

If you spend more than 100 dollars on equipment for this it would be a waste. For years I have had similar services running on a p166 mmx with 64 MB ram.
 
I hope the line you are upgrading to is a ton faster than that, if this site you are talking about comes even remotely popular that line is gonna be a horriable bottleneck to a bad ass server.
 
I've decided to start out with access from only a small number of accounts at first.

Like downloads from me will max out at around 10-15 users at once.

If I gain more support for the project, I will upgrade to something in the T lines, but as those are around 200 dollars a month here, I won't be hasty just yet.

I'm thinking:
Case (probably just a regular case with good fans and a temp monitor on the front)
400 watt Power Supply (if it doesn't come with one)
one 120 gig Western Digital HD for the files (I'll add in a third if I expand) and my extra 30 gig for the OS and other programs
CD-RW (I have a spare to use) drive to put some stuff on it
512 MB of RAM (unless more RAM will make the uploads somewhat faster)

With all that in mind, what I'm lastly looking for recommendations for are:
The Motherboard
The CPU

I am going to use either Windows XP or ME (which is better?) and then use Apache, install php, mysql, email and an FTP.

Basically, I am going to make this a smaller version of what I was originally going to do.
 
You won't need a whole lot of CPU power for what it will be used for, or a whole lot of ram for that matter. Whatever you can get cheap...

As far as the o/s goes, I'd go with XP (as long as it can handle it just fine). ME is going to be much more unstable... You don't want your server to BSOD 3 times a day :(
 
Frankly, if it's just for fileserving/http, no need to have a powerhouse, reliability is the keyword

my humble advices :
CPU : P4(model c) 2.4 GHz or 2.6GHz depending on availability and prices (it's overkill anyway) Avoid any AMD stuff, performance isn't the problem, but heat is
Ram : 2x256Mb infineon/samsung/kingston PC3200 no need for ultra low timings
Heatsink : Zalman CNPS 7000 Cu (silent, reliable, efficient)
Motherboard : Asus P4C800-E Deluxe flashed with latest bios (a bit overkill I know, but at least it allows for lots of HDDs to be connected, just in case, and it has a Gigabit LAN port)
Case : no real importance, just make sure it allows for a few fans to be connected (heat is your enemy) like a Chieftec case or any of their clones (antec, etc)
PSU : Fortron or Enermax (privilege signal quality to avoid shortening the life span of your components), 350W will do even with lots of HDDs
HDDs : system : a single Western Digital raptor 36Gb drive (reliability and speed)
HDDs : Data : depends on what kind of space you need and your budget, in any case, buy Western Digital, right now they are the most reliable around
GFX card : some stable stuff that doesn't heat up like a BBQ, cheap GF2 MX or GF4 MX
OS : Windows Server 2003 Standard (excellent so far, got 11 servers at work running it)

I hope this helps

Edit: WinME is outta question for sure, XP for a server is better but, it's a consumer OS remember, memory management isn't the best thing it does
 
Thanks for the advice. It's greatly appreciated.

Especially about the Heatsink. The one I isntalled on my current gaming computer (a Volcano 11) is louder that any of my house fans.

My friends know more about the motherboard and CPU than I do. So I will consult them on what you said.

EDIT: A question for you, what comes preinstalled with Windows Server 2003? Internet compatible-wise. Since I'm going to be running a forum, php, mysql, a mail server and and FTP.
 
um, i didn't know php and mysql would run on windows server?

i thought those were unix machines
 
I was told an AMD Duron would be cheaper and better to go with instead of a new P4.

hhhmmm
 
regarding web and ftp, Windows server 2003 comes with IIS (needs to be installed after the main setup from add-remove components)
IIS is fully compatible with php provided you install the right distribution and enable the isapi filter (instructions are supplied in the Win32 package)
no problem with running mysql either, just grab the Win32 distrib from mysql's site
Windows Server 2003 has it's own SMTP and POP engines, so no problem with mail either
If you don't trust IIS (6.0 is really excellent but well some ppl just won't..) you can still install Apache for Win32


regarding the CPU, avoid AMD. It's both a matter of heat and motherboard reliability, I had problems every time I tried installing W2003 on a nForce2 or any VIA based motherboard, mainly with IDE drivers
 
Originally posted by Station

I am going to use either Windows XP or ME (which is better?) and then use Apache, install php, mysql, email and an FTP.
Click to expand...
if you use ME for a SERVER, I'm going to have to come over there and smack you.

In fact, if you use ME for ANYTHING you probably need a smack, but especially for a server....
 
Actually, I'm going to use Win 2003 Server.

With:
Apache
PHP
Mysql
pop3
FTP

I checked the sites and they're all compatible with Windows.
 
Originally posted by Station
I was told an AMD Duron would be cheaper and better to go with instead of a new P4.

hhhmmm
Click to expand...

It may be cheaper but it definately wouldn't be better. For a small server the Intel Pentium 4's are your best option next to going dual processor.
 
Originally posted by Station

I'm thinking:
Case (probably just a regular case with good fans and a temp monitor on the front)
400 watt Power Supply (if it doesn't come with one)
one 120 gig Western Digital HD for the files (I'll add in a third if I expand) and my extra 30 gig for the OS and other programs
CD-RW (I have a spare to use) drive to put some stuff on it
512 MB of RAM (unless more RAM will make the uploads somewhat faster)

With all that in mind, what I'm lastly looking for recommendations for are:
The Motherboard
The CPU
.
Click to expand...

make that 2 120 gig in raid 1

not sure why everyone is suggesting p4's and shit.


anything you buy will be limited by your upload, its pointless to have p4 and ddr if your upload is 384kb

go buy an older pentium
 
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