Building and running my own server, is it too much headache?

[sagehen]

I am not doing anything difficult as far as my web site goes and i want to know how difficult it is to maintain and setup my own server? I have put together a few desktop machines for my own use, and maintanance has basically been zero. I assume a server is a little more involved?

 

[Journeyman]

Not really... Basically you just get it up and running, and assuming you've used good hardware and done a good job on assembly it should just go. A home server is just a desktop machine dedicated to that particular purpose... Of course, you'll want to select your parts with that purpose in mind - plenty of RAM and a fast hard drive, for example...

I built myself a little Duron 700 box that I use as a webserver... Tossed it together, installed Win2k with minimal options, good to go. I usually log in about once a month to download patches and updates, scan for viruses, reboot if the updates require and forget about it again.

If you're so inclined, you could try running Linux for your server and maybe learn some things in the process, but I didn't want to mess with it, so Win2k for me.

 

[DamienVorlion]

You got a OCx pipe laying around? Because you can forget about it on a dial up, cable, or adsl connection. Even a small site can generate huge amounts of traffic. I'd outsource it to terabyte or some other provider if you can spare $20-$50 per month. Unless your doing a bio page or something.