Server upgrade - Your opinions?

C

centurion

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 15, 2003
Messages
162
I want to upgrade my server to add a RAID card and more hard drives. Currently I am limited by two things: 1) the motherboard is designed for a 1U case and is currently in a 4U case 2) the current case doesn't support more than 5 drives.

Specs:
(2) Intel Xeon 5130 Dual-core processors (2.0ghz each)
Intel S5000VCL
6gb FB-DIMM ECC DDR2 667 (1gb DIMM's)
120gb WD SATA (OS drive)
(5) 500gb Seagate 7200.11 (Storage)

and a LSI RAID card I acquired from Ockie on the cheap (Thanks Ockie!)

Regardless, I'm going to need a new case to accommodate adding additional drives (looking at installing four more drives of either 1TB to 1.5TB variety).

The question is, do I upgrade the motherboard to use my existing processors and memory, or do I purchase a new mobo, cpu and memory? A new motherboard with standard expansion slots would run $250 for a decent board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131239). Alternatively, I could put together a new setup for about that.

I'm torn either way and can't make a decision.
 
5130s are still good processors, so unless you need the horsepower, I don't see any reason to upgrade everything. What are you looking at as a replacement setup that will only be $250?
 
if i keep the 5130's i only need to replace the motherboard. the issue is that the motherboard i have now doesn't have any expansion slots so i can't add a raid card and more drives. the server motherboard i'm looking at is only $250 (asus DSBF-D16). though it's not hard to find a desktop mobo, cpu and mem combo for that much and potentially have a better upgrade path, and maybe more cpu power.
 
centurion said:
if i keep the 5130's i only need to replace the motherboard. the issue is that the motherboard i have now doesn't have any expansion slots so i can't add a raid card and more drives. the server motherboard i'm looking at is only $250 (asus DSBF-D16). though it's not hard to find a desktop mobo, cpu and mem combo for that much and potentially have a better upgrade path, and maybe more cpu power.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you're looking for, is this just a file server? Not sure what sort of upgrade path you'll find with a mb/cpu/mem combo that's as cheap as $250. Certainly not 8 core support that you'd have with your current setup if you ever want to upgrade the processors, or 64 gigs of memory that the board you're looking at supports. I'd probably spend more and get a 5400 series board, so you can upgrade to 45nm quads when people start dumping them.
 
File serving, newsgroup downloading, streaming to my media center, vmware server, and some other odd and end stuff. enough stuff that i'd want to run something beefier than a pentium dual-core.

i figured going with desktop equipment over server equipment would save some money and let me get a little more power for my money. i just happened to get luck with my current server gear and got a great deal from a friend.
 
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