New Server

[Scooba Da Bass]

I've got to put together a new server for the place I work at as our current one is falling to bits (whoo quality!).

What sort of setup should I be looking at, price is an issue, however, I'm sure I can push a higher price through as long as reliability and stuff are good.

It's mainly used for storing recordings in process and retrieving them to various computers in various studios. The networking; switches, cabling, cards etc.. Is all in working order. I was thinking maybe a dual athlon XP system with either 2 or 3 80gb drives (audio isn't recorded real time over the network so transfer speeds aren't that much of an issue) in a Raid config. Any suggestions for mobos/chip combinations?

I'll prolly stick Win2K Server as I'm most comfortable with using it.

Thnks in advance

 

[old.Jas]

Dell do some good workgroup servers - excellent support as well

 

[Testin da Cable]

there is that. if you get a 'brand' server you'll be able to call in their support. on the other hand they tend to be more expensive than a diy.

if you're going to raid you're best off getting a dedicated card for it. 3 or more drives will allow you go to fault tolerant raid5 with one drive providing the tolerance. otherwise you will be left with just a stripe, or mirrors. opting for striping with parity [raid5] is a smart thing to do even if you back your server up to a tapeunit or other server. be aware you'll lose a drive in the total as the parity striped across all the drives equals the size of one of them. don't raid if your drives aren't identical.
highest performance will be a strip [raid0] lowest [but fault tolerant] will be a mirror of two drives [raid1]. get as many drives as you can so you can devide the IO across them all.

a dual XP will roxor your boxor Scooba, but be aware that there is a picky memory issue [iirc]. it seems that the MP variant only runs with the kind of ddr dims that _isn't_ all over the shops. you will have to do some looking tho as my info may be old. also be aware that, if you go diy, getting a good case with lots of cooling and room for many drives [and a tough psu heh] may be tricky, not to mention dentage of your funding.

if you don't really need the cpu power you may get a good deal looking at a dual P III [note the 3, not 4] which is slower, but less expensive. also, you prolly won't notice the lesser punch on a dual running server stuff. otherwise a single XP will run just fine, and you'll avoid the possible ram problem. invest the money you save in a good ide-raid card like an escalade or the adaptec model for ide. getting a scsi raid card isn't that bad an idea but the price of big, fast scsi drives will cream your budget.

good luck, tell us how you made out mate

 

[caLLous]

For a good server case, I'd recommend the Lian-Li PC70. It not only looks the dogs nads, it has a shedload-and-a-half of room inside (6 external 5.25", 3 external 3.5" and 6 internal 3.5") and good cooling. This, coupled with a PSU such as the Enermax EG651P-VE (550W) provides more than enough grunt for what you're planning. Expect to pay about £300 for these two. I agree with everything teedy said about the RAID and CPU setup as well.

Hope this helps.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Ok, here's the tentative setup for the new Server;

Lian Li PC-70 Case - £208.56
Enermax 550Watt EG651P-VE - £122.79
MSI-Microstar KT3Ultra MS6380E Socket A KT333 ATX Motherboard - £95.00
AthlonXP 1600+ - £110.00
3 x 512Mb SDRAM PC-133 - £357
Adaptec 2400 4Ch IDE Raid Controller - £292.58
4 x 80.5Gb IBM 120GXP "Vancouver" ATA-100 - £529.92

Total; £1751.85

Floppy drive, Network card, Video card, sound card and Win2K Advanced Server will be salvaged from the old machine. Any glaring omissions and/or changes that jump out at people?

 

[Will]

Might want to think about this information about those HDD.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

bleurgh, in that case

4 x DiamondMax+ D740X 80GB UDMA133 - £507.56

 

[Testin da Cable]

that ram is ddr I trust? in all other things your future server looks neat Scooba. do the 'good driver' thing and patch it well, install the 'win2k' drivers for it and you'll be fine.

ps. dun forget to pm me where it will be so I can break in one night and steal it

 

[Will]

Good point, with that mobo, you should go for some nice ddr ram, maybe even the cas2 333 ram from Corsair.

The ata133 isn't worth the mobo alone, you are better saving a few beans on the mobo if you are only going for sdr ram.