[B]REALLY NEED HELP BUILDING SERVER[/B]

Curtis · 2 Oct 2008 at 00:50

REALLY NEED HELP BUILDING SERVER

I am wanting to build a dirt cheap server because all of the servers i can find are WAY too expensive.I just want to build a home sever, nothing special but i can't seem to find anything in my category.

SOM3ON3 PL33SE H3LP!!!!!!

Beansprout · 2 Oct 2008 at 00:51

Craig321 · 2 Oct 2008 at 00:51

Claimed.

Curtis · 2 Oct 2008 at 00:58

I'm sorry but i don't understand what :/ and "claimed" means

(I'm really new to all of this,sorry

)

Beansprout · 2 Oct 2008 at 01:00

If you just want a machine to use at home, there's no need for an actual 'server' as such - just build a normal PC with lots of disk space, maybe RAID 1 or 5, and perhaps a video card with HDMI-out and a blu-ray drive if you want it to also act as a HTPC

Curtis · 2 Oct 2008 at 01:06

Beansprout said:
If you just want a machine to use at home, there's no need for an actual 'server' as such - just build a normal PC with lots of disk space, maybe RAID 1 or 5, and perhaps a video card with HDMI-out and a blu-ray drive if you want it to also act as a HTPC

Firstly,Thank-you for the reply.

I would like to build a home server as my mother,sister and me all have our own individual computers and i thought it would be great way for us all to upload and share files with ease.

VaderDSL · 2 Oct 2008 at 01:09

Curtis said:
Firstly,Thank-you for the reply.

I would like to build a home server as my mother,sister and me all have our own individual computers and i thought it would be great way for us all to upload and share files with ease.

Just buy something like this plug it into the router and hey presto you can all upload to it and share files, no need at all for a server.

I mean you don't even need to buy anything, just setup a simple network between the machines and you're good to go.

Curtis · 2 Oct 2008 at 01:14

Thank-you so much!
This has just it so much easier and cheaper!
I'm gonna order one next week!

I apreciate all your help and advice,thank-you

Curtis · 2 Oct 2008 at 01:24

I just need to ask you one more thing,
I was thinking of seting up RAID 1 on my pc because i am sick an tired of HDD dying on me,but i was thinking,if both of the HDD's are on and spinning,how will the back-up be any more reliable when it's uptime has been the same as the second HDD?

Thank-you!

atomiser · 2 Oct 2008 at 08:13

because i am sick an tired of HDD dying on me

are you buying a decent quality drive? they are very reliable these days. you should always buy a drive with a decent warranty, from a company with a good rma process. is your machine plugged into a surge protector? are you always shutting your machines down properly?

how will the back-up be any more reliable when it's uptime has been the same as the second HDD

there isn't any guarantee that the second drive will be any more reliable, in fact - it probably won't be since two drives from the same manufacturer that are the same model will have the same mtbf figure. with raid1 you are implementing n+1 redundancy which means you can suffer the failure of one of the drives and the data will still be available. you can then replace the drive and the array will re-build itself. it's the very small likelihood of two drives failing at the same time that raid takes advantage of.

and finally...

RAID IS NOT A BACKUP!!!

jaybee · 2 Oct 2008 at 08:18

Curtis said:
I'm sorry but i don't understand what :/ and "claimed" means

(I'm really new to all of this,sorry)

Your not the only one. As said above have a look at NAS box first

oddjob62 · 2 Oct 2008 at 09:16

atomiser said:
RAID IS NOT A BACKUP!!!

That's the bottom line.

You accidentally delete a file or it gets corrupted. RAID is not going to help at all.

gumbald · 4 Oct 2008 at 15:20

Bold in titles fails.

Curtis said:
I am wanting to build a dirt cheap server because all of the servers i can find are WAY too expensive.I just want to build a home sever, nothing special but i can't seem to find anything in my category.

Generally when asking for advice, it's useful to say what specifically you're looking for and what you've discounted. How much have you got to spend for example?

How much stuff are you looking to back up? I got an IcyBox NAS that I stick my own drives in, rather than buying a preformed one.

Curtis said:
SOM3ON3 PL33SE H3LP!!!!!!

We're generally adults here, who speak properly.

Amoeba · 4 Oct 2008 at 23:03

I've just thrown an old server in the bin you could have had

If you want an actual server rather than just a NAS box (if you wanted to learn more about servers software for example) then why not just look around on ebay for old PCs, whack a large hard drive in one, and install a copy of Windows Server or Linux? You can pick up pretty good specced PCs for under 100 quid which will do what you want no problem.

I picked up a Dell PowerEdge 1550 for 80 quid, and whilst probably not appropriate for your needs (big and noisy) it goes to show you can pick up stuff for pretty cheap...

crestj · 8 Oct 2008 at 10:10

Before you look at NAS's you should remember that to get a decent one with a network speed of a useable rate you need to spend quite a bit on it.

Most 100mb NIC interfaces on NAS's run at a realistic max 40mbps. You would need to get one with a gigabit interface.