Advice on use of old Xeon Server.

[cadric]

Hi.

A few days ago I got my hands on a old Xeon server. Excited that I got it for free I took it home and started to ponder about what to do with it. Well. I haven't really gotten far.

The server being mostly stripped consist of:

• Asus PU-DL motherboard
• Two Intel Xeon 2.40GHz 2400dp/512/533 Cpu Processor SL74T
• Two Intel stock cpu fans
• A HEC-300LR-PTX power supply
• a The Nexus 120mm Real Silent Case Fan
• An unindentifed old tower that I will replace
• And a old usb pci controller card.

I have a few questions that I would like some input on.

First and mainly is RAM. I have been looking for some to buy. And boy is pc2100 ecc ram expensive. That said. I did find some on ebay:
12GB 2x6 Dell PowerEdge 2600 Memory RAM ECC REG PC2100
Would this work? I'm having problems figuring out if it does.
And while 12 GB might be way overkill, at that price it will be ok

Can you recommend a good cheap small desktop case for it?

I don't know what HD I will use yet. At first I think I will just use what I have laying around, to get it up and running and test it. Main storage will at first just be an external 2 TB usb HD.
But do you have any suggestions for what I should do. Get a sata controller, scsi or something else? The motherboard don't seem to have neither natively. What will work well for my needs (more on that below)

When and if I get this little server up and running what OS would you use?
I got an unused version of Windows home server 2011. But I'm not sure if this will work ok with the motherboard and xeon cpu's.

Or should I get linux or BSD. And in that case. What distributions is good?

It should for the most part. Just sit in is corner with minimal interaction.
And that brings me to the final "questions". Which might depend alot on how you answer the above questions.

The server will be running:

• Sickbeard, Sabnzbd, Pyload and possible a torrent client.
• It will also run as a small minecraft server using Bukkit. At peak it will server around 20 people.
• And at last a small webserver with php/mysql. Likely to be apache.
• It should connect to an windows home network, so I can browse files with xbmc and other applications.

I have all this running on two old computers now and a acer aspire revo 3610. I would really like to get all the stuff running on this one xeon box, expect for xbmc which will run on the 3610. My home network is running on a RT-N56U Gigabit Router with an 40Mb/s outgoing fiber line.


I think that's all the questions I have for now. Thanks for any input you can give.

 

[mfenn]

Throw it in the trash. It's the original Pentium 4 based Xeon, so it's pretty much slower and less power efficient than any $300 PC that you can buy today.

 

[cadric]

ok.. damn.. figured as much

Ah well.

 

[mfenn]

ok.. damn.. figured as much

Ah well.

Yep, no prob. You should check out the Dell Server outlet. You can get real, modern servers for less than $500.

 

[Ken g6]

Hm. Looks like you got the Xeon equivalent of a Pentium 4. D: Funny thing is, aside from the being a Xeon, a Celeron G530 appears to meet or beat it in every respect! If, in the end, your costs are going to exceed about $120 for the RAM and anything else specific to that board, I'd swap in a G530. I might even lower that considering the amount of electricity those Xeons will take compared to a G530.

It's probably impossible to tell from that RAM listing whether or not is it 184-pin DDR. (And not DDR2.) Here's a guide from Wikipedia:

Edit: Responding to

Throw it in the trash.

Well, throw the board in the trash. The case is good. The PSU may be OK.

Edit2: I see the case isn't good for you. Mfenn was right.

 

[dclive]

Personally I'd put all of the things you want onto the Acer (the Atom is plenty for that - home sharing, Sickbeard/SABNZBD/etc., plus some XBMC V11) and call it a day.