Spec me a server

krooton · 13 Feb 2009 at 20:04

Right, I'm looking at putting together a fairly powerful webserver, using a RAID 5 set up with 4x 1TB SATA disks.

RAID 5 capable cards are pricier than I was expecting, but here is the general spec I have put together:

I'm totally new to this all, so any recommendations/suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Keltik THC · 13 Feb 2009 at 20:10

im thinking of doing the same later this year, but holy batman i didnt realise how much the RAID controller was... dayum.

looks good to me but its going to get a bit toasty in their... no cooling

? when i do finally build my server im thinking totally silent fans with filters, my house is very dusty and i expect my server to obviously be switched on all the time... probably become a fire hazard after a week switched on.

Liquidfox · 13 Feb 2009 at 20:13

Wouldn't it be easier to buy an HP server? ML110/115 would most likely do for a webserver. Comes with most of this as standard, and a 3Yr NBD warranty...
All you'd have to buy was the HDDs.

krooton · 13 Feb 2009 at 21:56

Keltik THC said:
im thinking of doing the same later this year, but holy batman i didnt realise how much the RAID controller was... dayum.

looks good to me but its going to get a bit toasty in their... no cooling ? when i do finally build my server im thinking totally silent fans with filters, my house is very dusty and i expect my server to obviously be switched on all the time... probably become a fire hazard after a week switched on.

The server is going to be sitting in a shed in the garden, and I have a bunch of generic fans lying about, so noise isn't an issue.

Looking at the HP options, they seem to only pack 1-2GB RAM.

This server will be dealing with LOTS of net traffic, so wouldn't more RAM be needed?

bremen1874 · 13 Feb 2009 at 22:00

I'd agree that buying a real server is the best solution.

If this machine is going to be used in a production environment then definitely buy a real server or at least build one from server grade components.

If you do want to build a server from desktop components then fine but please note the following brief points...

The RAID adapter you've selected is PCI-X and that motherboard only has 32bit PCI slots. The card will probably work but running it in a 32bit slot will cripple the performance. It's also horribly expensive, you can buy a new PERC5i for less than that. Second hand you can pick up a PERC5i with battery backup and cables for about £100.

Do you really need anywhere near that sort of disk capacity? You'd get much better performance with a pair of 10K or 15K SAS drives (or Raptors) in RAID1. Whatever you do, buy drives that are intended for RAID use. When looking at drives ignore sustained transfer rates as they are basically irrelevant when looking at server loads.

You say the machine is going to handle LOTS of traffic, What do you call LOTS? What sort of WAN connection are you going to have? What are you going to use for an OS? Have you factored in the cost of a UPS and a decent backup solution?

decto · 13 Feb 2009 at 22:42

Agree with all of the above....

What sort of uplink are you using? I'm not aware of anything in the uk that can remotely equal a co-location rack server in terms of value for money and uplink capabilty.