(Franken) Server... Geek Advice Needed!!!

[PapaBear]

<p>&nbsp;I've been building my own PCs for a few years, now. In terms of hardware, I'm always a few years behind the &quot;latest thing&quot;. I'm strictly low budget. I buy the hardware one piece at a time (usually on EBay). It's worked great, so far. Now I want to explore new horizons.</p><p>&nbsp;I'd like to try building my first server. I'm looking to build a server that will be good enough to host a website (another thing I've never done), but nothing on the level of ronfez.net. I just want to experiment.</p><p>&nbsp;Is there anyone here, who has 2-4 year old server experience?</p><p>&nbsp;Most of my hardware experience is with AMD, so I'm comfortable with that.&nbsp;I've also had a little bit of Intel experience. </p>

[JustJon]

If it's for low level usage, you could just use a midrange pc.&nbsp; Or if you're the only user, even an old pc running linux would be fine.

[SatCam]

Yea, just use an old computer you have lying around, or buy a new case and use your old parts. Most servers people use in their homes are old Windows 95/98-quality machines (hopefully running linux).

The cool thing about servers is that they do not need to be really super new to do cool stuff like be a webserver. Webservers require harddisk, ram and cpu, but not much else. Don't worry about sound, video, any of that stuff. Also, linux will help you take advantage of your hardware because it'll be specialized for your use. A 450 mhz CPU could do stuff you never thought it coul do.

For your own personal webserver, your hard drive could be 10gbs, your cpu could be 450 mhz... RAM is probably where you might want to invest a little money. You shouldn't find yourself spending more than $100

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by SatCam on 1-22-07 @ 3:29 PM</span>

[PapaBear]

I should be pretty good, then. What I have to start with is an AMD based motherboard with a 1.8Ghz processor. Would 512mb of ram be OK, or should I go for a gig?

[FreshJ]

If you run a linux server with no Graphical interface you could run on as little as 64 mb of ram.&nbsp; 512 should be pleanty even if you install X.&nbsp; 512 ram is enough to even run a Webserver on top of Windows XP.

[zentraed]

<p>Unless you're doing a lot of server-side scripting, a web-server requires next to no cpu power. It's essentially just copying text and picture files. If you don't have any experience with linux, learning the ins and outs of whatever distro you install will be the biggest hassle. But they're easy to administer remotely (like from another computer on the same network). </p><p>You can also use Internet Information Services (IIS) in windows as a web server. It's not installed by default, but it's in Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components.</p><p>I built a server system from the ground up about a year ago for about $550 (1.6ghz amd, 1gb ram, 2x80 gb raid 1). i have one 400 gb drive in there for storage right now that i plan to replace with 4-disk raid 5 array (everything is so cheap these days). </p>

[SatCam]

You can also use Internet Information Services (IIS)

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Glück]

Yeah just an old computer is good, but if its a dynamic app on it, more memory is always good. For webserver I usually use Freebsd but that's just my pref. If its on your home network you wont have to worry about much because the amount of data you're going to be pushing is not going to bough down even an old pc.

Good Luck