Some server advice

[pthug]

Greets guys,

Recently i've been looking for a server, possibly a 1u server that I would like to setup and obviously keep on all the time. There is no rack as of yet, but I'd obviously i'd like to considering i'm looking at a rack server.

It's mainly going to be a development server, but obviously I don't know where to start and what sort of spec to expect to run at a moderately fast speed.

Some apps that i would like running are iis with a few .net apps running on it, including a blog,sql2008, windows 2008 operating system, file sharing enabled and remote desktop enabled. Pretty much anything on top of that is a bonus.


I've looked at the dell poweredge servers on their site, but I can't justify spending soo much for something that isn't going to be doing too much. So I have resorted to looking at some servers on ebay.

This Server Seems to be a spec high enough to support windows 2008 but am i missing something? Will it be enough to fit my needs.

Also, in terms of monitors - are there any special connecters I need or will any server with a vga connection do?

Lastly, how upgradeable are 1u servers. Can you replace the motherboard easily or is it not worth the hassle?

 

[#Chri5#]

Not bad for the price. Probably not very power efficient compared to newer CPUs. There's no HDs in that price, so you'd need 1 or 2 SCSI (SCA) hard disks with the relevant HP disk caddy to mount them in.

The motherboard will be very specific and would be immense amounts of hassle to change.

Video will be a normal 15 pin D-SUB VGA.

 

[paradigm]

Any particular reason you feel that (for a dev platform especially) you need rackmount server grade kit?

It will run just fine on a normal desktop you know (and a lot quieter too).

 

[3dcandy]

just to add that a 1u server is usually very, very loud - even when powered off but still plugged in! You will need at least one SCSI hard drive, but the caddy is included, so just beware that for £10 you will get one 36 gig drive....which is tiny by modern standards...

I have a Poweredge 1850 which suits me, and I reckon you could get a better deal, but that's up to you. I also reckon that a desktop is probably quieter and better power wise if you can build/buy one cheap enough. A dual core Celeron or even a dual core Atom is fine for a server if it's just for personal dev use.