Replace my ageing Dell 2650

[gareth60]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, so hello.

My question.

I have had my server at home in my shed for probably over 3 > 4 years now and I'm looking at replacing it for several reasons.

It's a Dell 2650, dual xeon with 8gb ram, raid 5 with 5 scsi disks, running VMware ESX.

I want to replace it because it's getting old now and i'm worried about it's reliability and also because it's very power hungry. I would also like to have a 64bit os to run things like Exchange 2007 and suchlike.

It's been a long time since I have built my own pc and i'm very out of touch, so i'm after some advice. My remit is that it needs to have least 8gb ram upgradable to 16gb when I get the cash and a quad core processor. It also needs to be as power efficient as a server thats on all the time can be. My current 2650 is using about 400 > 500 watts running.

Coincidently, this months copy of PC Pro does a motherboard / cpu / memory and case comparison which I have read to try and understand.

My short list is currently;

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
Asus P5Q Pro

AMD Phenon II x4 920
Asus M3N78 Pro

As for the case, i have no idea, I have seem a few servers ones which I guess have more fans in. I will also be getting two 1tb drives for storage.

Any help / advise will be greatfully recieved.

Regards
Gareth

 

[gareth60]

Hi guys,

Yes, it is a bit of a beast, I did have two actually. I aquired them from work and at the time, they were the only really option for a server, but, times change. I've had all the jokes from work collegues

It's in a shed cos of the noise and size but I want to use the shed for other stuff, so, i'd like to move my server to the house.

The P5Q will take 16bg, but, do to cost of the dimms, 8gb will be fine for me to start with.

Any ideas on the best case, I was looking at the Antec Atlas one?

Also, AMD .vs. Intel. currently leaning towards Intel cos it's more widespread.

thanks