• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

SFF for Server OS

B

benutne

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 15, 2001
Messages
1,492
I would really like to put together a few (maybe three or so) SFF boxes to install a Windows 2003 Server network. Linux guys can just shut their holes about "Linux is bettah! I make the hair nice and clean!" because I dont want to hear it.

I was looking at the VIA mini-ITX systems, but they seem to be woefully underpowered, and the ones that aren't are stupid expensive. Am I mistaken? Would they be able to handle a Win2K3 server?

I was browsing through the barebones (basically SFF) section of NewEgg, and wanted to see just how many other people use SFF PCs for their servers. This is all going in my home BTW. There's no way my wife would allow me to have three full size PCs in the house in addition to the two we already have.
 
Well... what do you want to do with them? What do you need servers for? Most servers really don't need powerful hardware at all. For instance, I run a server in my house. It runs http, ftp, samba (file sharing) and ssh, gets a fair amount of traffic, and it's a Celeron 300A with 256MB of RAM. Runs fine.

The biggest hurdle I see is the limited storage options you're going to run into when dealing with a small case. If you want something high end, for instance if you're doing some database work, you can get any socket 939 SFF system like a Shuttle, drop an X2 in there with at least 2GB of RAM, shove in a pair of Raptors in a RAID array, and you're good to go.

Your goals with the server are very important.
 
Domain Controller, Exchange/Web (might separate those), and file server. I COULD squeeze all that on one box, but I'd rather not. I may just get one huge ass machine and run Virtual Server 2005 on it...I dunno. Just wanted to see what other people thought.
 
A domain with Exchange in your house? Crap, how many people live in your place? Is this just for practice?

Anyway, if that's your goal, a single server will be way more than adequate, unless we're talking about dozens of people trying to use it simultaneously. A pair of SATA drives in a RAID array, partitioned correctly (say, a couple of 250GB drives, with 20GB for the C: drive, and the other 230GB for data), will be fine. Almost any processor currently available will do. Get 2GB of RAM.
 
I'm putting Lotus Domino (Exchange is crap ;-), JBoss, PostgreSQL onto a dual core Opteron sitting in an Aspire Q-Xpack case, so yes, it can be done. I probably don't need the dual core, but it'll be doing HTPC duty as well...running Linux ;-)
 
kumquat said:
As if Domino is any better ;)
Click to expand...
LOL. Depends on what you use it for...it's not just email and calendaring and it's craploads more secure than all it's competitors AFAIK ;-)

BTW, do you guys run nVidia's RAID or Linux software RAID?
I've been reading a lot of comments that nVidia's RAID is really software RAID w/ minimal hardware support and it's crap :-P
Planning on putting on mdraid w/ LVM. Wish there were some way to do something like what Intel does in their integrated chipset (partition the same two drives as RAID0 and RAID1 so I can put swap/temp on a RAID0 partition while keeping the data/OS on the part of the drives that is RAID1)...
 
benutne said:
I would really like to put together a few (maybe three or so) SFF boxes to install a Windows 2003 Server network. Linux guys can just shut their holes about "Linux is bettah! I make the hair nice and clean!" because I dont want to hear it.

I was looking at the VIA mini-ITX systems, but they seem to be woefully underpowered, and the ones that aren't are stupid expensive. Am I mistaken? Would they be able to handle a Win2K3 server?

I was browsing through the barebones (basically SFF) section of NewEgg, and wanted to see just how many other people use SFF PCs for their servers. This is all going in my home BTW. There's no way my wife would allow me to have three full size PCs in the house in addition to the two we already have.
Click to expand...


Im in a similar boat, however I will be using linux: because " I leave the hair silky and shmooth!" (lol) Im currently running an old compaq 450mhz pentium that im sure is on its last leg. Im and amd guy but getting a couple of these wouldnt be that bad of a deal....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856101316 you can buy a pair of xeons and run one in each for a little while. For about the same price as a barebones a64 setup. with for my purposes a smaller footprint.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
How about one of these? http://www.excaliberpc.com/Aopen_Pandora_MiniPC_MP915-B_CD/95.8EX10.I9P/partinfo-id-561720.html
Click to expand...
I dunno about that one. Only takes a single 2.5" hard drive, only up to 1GB of RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856101462
Something like that would be a more flexible choice, but it's still super tiny.
If you feel that you can go a little bit bigger, you can get a nice full-featured mATX solution by pairing these two up:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811144162
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138266

Add a Sempron 2800+ for about $75, 2GB of RAM for about $170, a pair of 250GB SATA drives for $200, and you're in business. Alternatively, you can get the socket 939 version of the mobo and toss in an A64 or, better yet, an Athlon X2.
 
kenyee said:
LOL. Depends on what you use it for...it's not just email and calendaring and it's craploads more secure than all it's competitors AFAIK ;-)

BTW, do you guys run nVidia's RAID or Linux software RAID?
I've been reading a lot of comments that nVidia's RAID is really software RAID w/ minimal hardware support and it's crap :-P
Planning on putting on mdraid w/ LVM. Wish there were some way to do something like what Intel does in their integrated chipset (partition the same two drives as RAID0 and RAID1 so I can put swap/temp on a RAID0 partition while keeping the data/OS on the part of the drives that is RAID1)...
Click to expand...

All the controllers built into motherboards that do RAID are software RAID. They're just software embedded on the controller. A real RAID controller card will run you in the neighborhood of 600+ dollars, so fat chance of seeing that on a motherboard for home use anytime soon.

You'll have to load software RAID drivers in Linux to use the drives just like you would in Windows. Also some older kernels might not work at all. 2.6.xx kernels should be fine though.

Here is a HOW-TO for Gentoo with NVRAID.

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_with_NVRAID_using_dmraid
 
Thanks for the pointer to the dmraid setup example.

Here's another one for those of you that don't want to use nVidia's pseudo-hardware RAID :)
http://dev.jerryweb.org/raid/
http://www.planamente.ch/emidio/pages/linux_howto_root_lvm_raid.php
One nice thing about using mdraid and LVM is that you can dynamically grow the LVM "drive" later on...change partition sizes, add new drives etc.

I haven't been able to find any speed comparisons of mdraid vs. dmraid.
Still also haven't been able to find anything on mixing RAID0/RAID1 on the same pair of drives like you can do w/ Intel's chipset.
 
kumquat said:
A domain with Exchange in your house? Crap, how many people live in your place? Is this just for practice?

Anyway, if that's your goal, a single server will be way more than adequate, unless we're talking about dozens of people trying to use it simultaneously. A pair of SATA drives in a RAID array, partitioned correctly (say, a couple of 250GB drives, with 20GB for the C: drive, and the other 230GB for data), will be fine. Almost any processor currently available will do. Get 2GB of RAM.
Click to expand...

A lot of it will be so I can work from home, but its more or less just goofing around. I want to get another ISA server set up at home so I can test a WAN link for when we move part of the company out of state. I've done lots of work inside Virtual Server 2005 (neato program BTW) and I'm ready to move the stuff to real hardware and off site. I dont like making a server do more than one thing, so I might just stick with some lower end stuff and stuff it inside one of those Aspire Q-Packs.
 
Pretty much any "modern" sff will work, i wouldn't use processors meant for itx boxes though. My home domain controller (2k3) is a dual p3 600 box, but I'm sure any of my sffs would perform "better". I have a buddy that runs exchange at home on a 700 mhz P3 box, so you shouldn't have any problems there. It is nice to have webmail configured and to be able to check it from anywhere.
 
benutne said:
A lot of it will be so I can work from home, but its more or less just goofing around. I want to get another ISA server set up at home so I can test a WAN link for when we move part of the company out of state. I've done lots of work inside Virtual Server 2005 (neato program BTW) and I'm ready to move the stuff to real hardware and off site. I dont like making a server do more than one thing, so I might just stick with some lower end stuff and stuff it inside one of those Aspire Q-Packs.
Click to expand...
That would be fine, just be sure you put in a lot of RAM... for Virtual Servers, 2GB of RAM is good.. 4GB is better.
 
I was looking at the VIA mini-ITX systems, but they seem to be woefully underpowered, and the ones that aren't are stupid expensive. Am I mistaken? Would they be able to handle a Win2K3 server?
Click to expand...
My Via 600 mhz runs file and web services, along with controlling house outdoor lighting and the heating/AC system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top