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Building a home Server

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by jbwaclawski

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I don't know if this is the right place for this or if we're allowed to ask
for this help, but I do need assistance building a server. I've recently
began tampering with Ubuntu Linux and Windows Server 2003 and
feel that Linux is going to be what I use in the long run.

What I really need help with are the components. I've been building
computers for near a decade now, so I know what's what in a
computer. The thing is I don't know what builds a good server. I've
always built either high-end, expensive gaming rigs or simple, home-
use machines. I've been getting estimates here and there and a good
one will run $1500 I hear.

So to kind of summarize: I would like to know what components to
aim for and any input on preferred operating system.

Oh shit, almost forgot to add. The main uses will be an FTP server (so
aiming for a monstrous HDD), VPN (also using it for family backups),
tech support (remoting to other PC's), POSSIBLE website hosting, music
streaming, and a game server (Coutnerstrike: Source, Unreal
Tournament, couple others)..

Thanks for your time

5 replies

by hal 9000

If there is any software involved it's even less of a machine that what could be considered as a reasonable server.

The Basic Server Chassis that i use here cost over $800.00 and that's without a Power Supply it's just the chassis.

But your problem here is that you are asking the wrong question as if you are even considering Web Hosting what Downtime can you accept?

You'll need a fairly big UPS that shuts down the computer when it's gets to a certain Battery level in a controlled fashion,. You'll also need a decent Internet Connection as well so that the Web Pages don't take forever to download or open on a remote computer. Then you'll need to consider Backup Hardware to run when the main Hardware needs to be taken Off Line for maintenance or worse still it fails.

As you'll be looking at Hosting Web Pages as well you'll need another means of storing backup's as you can not trust a HDD to do this reliably on a computer running 24/7/365 it's just too susceptible to attack & Failure to be considered as useful. However you may get way with a NAS device to perform Backups with it really depends on what form of Disaster you are planning for and how long you can afford to have the hardware down when something breaks.

As for a Server Board look at the Multi Processor M'Boards that accept the Multi Core Xeno's EEC RAM and possibly inbuilt RAID Arrays. Personally I've never had any joy with the AMD CPU's in servers so I steer clear of them as the downtime was too great. If you think of a High End Games Rig and make it about 10 times more powerful and through an outrageous amount of RAM into it you will be getting fairly close to a half way decent Server Platform and then use the Biggest HDD that you can get to setup a RAID 0 or 5 array depending on the amount of redundancy that you require.

You need to build in Redundancy at every level so a Redundant PS and LAN are just the starting points to look at.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/gmas3

Here is a Starting Point it's a M'Board that I use for High End Work Stations or Low End Servers though with the Server application they are run headless and when used in a Workstation they run much better Graphics Cards than the On Board Graphics that this comes standard with. You can fit 2 X 2 Core Xeon's and enough RAM to make it useful as a small File Server but anything more requires a more powerful machine to work with.

Col

by jbwaclawski

Thanks alot for the help, that sorta gave me an idea of
where to go should I gather about $10 grand...

I think you took everything I said I'd be using it for and
multiplied it times about 6,563,432. When I say website
hosting, I mean a small family site. When I say
microphone chatting, I mean family chatting (I have family
in England and the calling charges are a bit high). When I
say FTP, I mean 10-15 users max. As for the other
things, nothing will be on non-stop really.

All this is for is family use, not small business. Thanks
though for the help...

by hal 9000

File Sharing not much else. The point however is that these two items are incompatible on the one server as it by it's very nature has to be on the wrong side of a DMZ and open to attack.

So that makes all your backup's vulnerable and subject to attack as well. But even with a small file server I always use at least 4 GIG of RAM which isn't over the top these days as it's relatively cheap easily obtainable and usable.

The entire idea of Hosting a web Site is to have it available when it's needed and there when people want to look which isn't sufficient being only working 12 hours in 24. So you need to consider if it's worth the money involved in hosting a Web Site when there are so many companies who can do it for a fraction of the price with better equipment that you can afford.

If you forget about the Web Hosting aspect you can step down a bit but you'll need this behind a decent Firewall appliance and then you can consider what you are looking at doing. I still say RAID as much as possible and for redundancy not performance with ideally a RAID on the OS and another for your Data. Perhaps you could consider Windows Home Server as a small Server Application as it's much smaller than the 2003 that you mentioned has more concurrent connections available 10 instead of 5 though you can not increase this number by buying additional CAL's like you can with 2003 but they are not cheap either as 1 X 5 License Pack will be slightly more than 50% of the cost of the Server OS.

But if you go with Ubuntu there will be no problems or extra expense involved but you may find that there are some things that you can not do under Linux that is available under Windows which you may want to use. But personally I would be looking at Free SUSE as the OS of choice.

Incidentally the above system for a server costs me about 6K to build + Software so it's not overly over the top in performance capabilities or cost. It's about the price of a decent NB that is one of the non ruggerised type and better than the cheap Bottom of the Line Throw Away NB's from the big makers.

Col

by bob.hunt

I'm not so sure that you need to be concerned about being up 24/7 since this is not a mission critical business server. At the very minimum, I'd consider two Raid 1 (Mirrored) setups. Depending on what you cam afford, I'd have one mirror RAID for system and programs, the second, with a 2 BIG drives, 500 gb, for data. In typical "Home Servers" you would not have the pleasure of a hot spare like in most business level servers that hold 6 drives, (2 drives RAID 1 - system and programs, 3 drives RAID 5 - data, 1 drive hot spare)so make sure you set up the server to notify you if a drive fails so you can replaced it and regenerate the mirror.

After that if you have more money to spend, you can always add more data space with BIG USB drives and to use for other backups, etc. With the USBs you can create a batch file that will copy one to another at night.

I would stay away from tape backups.

BTW, when using drives for mirrors, my experience has been to buy or use 2 drives that are the same, not just size but make and model as well.

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