Game Server Machine - the proposed specifications

adamscybot

adamscybot

adamscybot

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I am on my way to setting up a game server provider. The following are the specs for the machine we are looking at.

Everything is for a Micro ATX machine.

Foxconn G33M-S Intel G33 Micro-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)
Antec NSK 3480 Micro ATX Case - 380W Earth Watts PSU
LG GDR-H30NBL 16x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM

TOTAL: £352.37

Now, questions:

1. I think a better micro ATX case and power supply is needed. What do you suggest? Remember this needs to be as LOW power consumption AS POSSIBLE as we will be allocated 0.5A at the data center.

2. What is the best CPU fan I can have that will actually fit in a matx case (dont want a too expensive one - but keep in mind the server will be at high load all the time).

3. These MATX motherboards seem to only have 1 header for a system fan...is there a kind of splitter I can get so I can install more case fans?

Also case needs to be as small as possible without majorly affecting cooling.

Thanks,

Adam
 
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adamscybot said:
Monthly costs are the same.

Also rackmount cases cost a bomb (correct me if wrong).

Thanks,

Adam
Click to expand...

No, monthy cost will NOT be the same, if you get to a decent size anyway. Its all due to real-estate.

10 servers in 1u rackmount = smaller than 10 standalone servers.

Rackmount is the way forward in any kind of datacenter.

I'd also urge you to do other things other than game servers if you are spending money on space in a datacenter.
 
Dell 2950 with 2 x Intel Xeon E5405 (eight 2Ghz cores) stick your own RAM in if you wanna save money.... comes to about £1k.

I recommend checking out www.webhostchat.co.uk for some advice with regards to servers. Co-lo is not something to be taken lightly, especially when there's a business on the line. :)
 
Last edited:
adamscybot said:
Actually, we have priced it and found they are the same - on various data centers.

Also, we are doing game servers.

Adam
Click to expand...

I know you are doing game servers, you said it in the opening post :/

I said do game servers AND other stuff.

Of course, if you want to just run in and take no advice you shouldn't have bothered posting. People here have more experience than yourself, and you should take the FREE advice with some merit.
 
What sort of budget are you looking at ?

A PC is not a good idea for a gaming server business. Real servers have things like dual power supplied, RAID Disks, Remote Management cards (ILO or RSA) which allow you to power server off/on and interact with the BIOS on boot up etc and also come with a warranty which means any faults are fixed to an SLA. Spend a bit more and you can get a real server with some redundancy, better performance and also monitoring tools.

Some examples based on your spec

(1) Single Hard disk failure -
Your Server - server is down and you need to get a spare hard disk to the data centre and rebuild the server.
Real Server - Server with RAID will continue to run and the failed disk can be swapped without powering the server off.

(2) PSU failure
Your Server - Server is down until PSU replaced
Real Server - Server stays up using other PSU and again you can swap out the PSU with the server still powered on.

(3) Server Hangs
Your server - You cannot see what is happening and will have to rely on the data centre staff to reboot it and tell you what they see.
Real server - Remote access card will show you live what is on the screen even if the OS has crashed. You can then reboot it and see via a web browser what is going on including in BIOS. Also the server monitoring tools will show you what happened and the current status of all the hardware. It could be something as simple as a failed FAN causing the server to shutdown / crash and on a real server you could tell this via the monitoring tools.

You get the idea. I would be very carefull about cutting cost too much and increasing the risk of problems.

I am now shutting up :D
 
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