Building servers on a $1200 budget

[HeroOfPellinor]

Yeah yeah, I know, budget server is an oxymoron. The bottom line is that I need first of all reliability and then as much performance as I can squeeze in.

One will be a SQL server, one a web server running Cold Fusion, and one a DC. All will see light useage.

I'll be using on-board RAID to save costs because the performance difference with our useage doesn't make it worth the money.

But I'm stuck trying to decide which processor and motherboard to use. Conroe would mean having the option to take advantage of Matrix RAID and running and Intel board. Woodcrest would be a Tyan board, but it's all setup for dual processors and I'd only be able to utilize one so I wonder if memory performance would take a slight hit. Opteron would be nice, but the cost is right there with an equivolent Woodcrest or Conroe.

Anybody have any input to sway me one way or another?

 

[ojingoh]

conroe, i think is best. i dunno i dont build opterons. i would go for an intel board personally, or a supermicro. again, your decision. i would look for a damn stable xeon board, but that's out of your budget. the new woodcrest(conroe-core 2 technology) are hawt.

servers are all about access -- who gets access, when they get access and what they will be getting. if it were me i'd go raid1, you pretty much have to get a redundant solution. also a lot of memory is very good, especially if you are blowin out sql. see if you can get some ECC sticks. a proper server board will have 8 slots, some up to 16.

you mention that you are not expecting very high traffic on this cluster. i would guess that it's a "project website" ($8900 for the sql license woudl kill your budget right there lol.) go do yourself a favor and download from ms virtual server 2005 R2, it's free. i would suggest running the cf server as a separate virtual machine, that way if you get rooted you can be semi-sure they dont tag your AD or sql server. obviously sql and ad machines have no ports open to the internet. NONE.

also ms best practices dictate that the ad is on a separate box form all the others. so i'd run virtual server, have host be the ad machine, sql running on #2 and cf running on #3. conroe is a good choice, it has virtualization baked in on the proc. idk again about amd. w/r/t amd i do remember they made a very nice chipset that supported NUMA -- if you know what NUMA is you know the benefits for very large amounts of RAM. speed is really not important after a certain point though, just lots and lots of ram. in fact you should pay more attention to the ram and hd situation more than the proc or motherboard situation tbh. i dont need to tell you how valuable ECC ram is.

but if i were you i'd seriously consider more budget for your boxes, $1200 for 3 servers is pushing it far, that is if you want it to last heh.

so to recap: 1 machine, 2 raid 1 drives, much memory -- ECCif you can get it. i would consider a minimum of 4 gigs of memory for this, well running x86 thats all you'll get anyway. 2gigs for the sql server, 1 gig for your cf server, 1 gig for your ad machine and host.

 

[mleonard]

Conroe would be a good choice to save money vs. Xeon. It's based on the Woodcrest I believe, and it's speed is pretty sweet. Intel or Supermicro for the motherboard. Supermicro doesn't have a Core 2 Duo ServerBoard on the market yet (only desktop), but I just got an email back from them today:

(SuperMicro Response) The server spec?ed boards will be released in the next week or so.
(Question) I was just wondering if you will be releasing a Core 2 Duo server based motherboard? If so, how soon before this ServerBoard might be release?

Can't wait to see the specs...

 

[Foert]

i'm looking to build a server as well..

I already have some parts.. for example : 2x 512 and 2x 1Gb IBM (samsung chips) DDR2 ECC PC3200 ..

does anyone know if the ASUS P5W DH will boot up with 3Gb ECC DDR2 (normally ecc is supported) and a E6600 ?
some of my friends say that E6600 needs at least 533Mhz memory to boot up ..


ps. new one here ;-)

 

[MichaelD]

Well, you say that reliability is the bottom line...but your budget won't permit that.

What's the difference between a PC and a server? What makes a "server?" One word: AVAILABILITY.

Any PC can be a "server"; I had a P3-550 single CPU, single NIC box with 256MB of memory and a big IDE drive doing light file-serving duty to 1,100 users for quite awhile. But there was no REDUNDANCY or FAULT TOLERANCE. THAT'S what makes a real server.

But, it's all about AVAILABILITY; real servers can't afford to be down. Ever.

Two primary attributes identify a real server; Fault Tolerance and Redundancy.

In a typical PC if you lose a CPU, a HD, a NIC or a stick of memory, the PC is toast. 0% data processing capability.

Real servers have: Redundant power supplies. SCSI controller failover. Backup system ROM (BIOS). Fault-tolerant disk storage. The ability to run with only one CPU if the other one(s) fail. RAM allocated in banks so that if a stick fails, that bank is shut off and the system continues with the other banks of RAM. Those are all earmarks of a true server.

For your budget, I would suggest a nice stable AMD or Intel platform and a nice UPS with shutdown software on each box. Small UPS's these days are cheap. You don't need extended runtime, you need that shutdown software capability. Power goes out, UPS immediately starts an orderly, normal shutdown of all connected machines.

Being that all these new boxes will see light usage, you'll be fine with whatever platform you choose. Just don't cheap out on the RAM or the Power Supply! If you need the onboard SATA RAID capabilities, that of course, will dictate what board you purchase, but these days they all (AMD & Intel platforms) all come with some type of onboard software SATA RAID.

Good luck.

 

[fire400]

yeah, it's common sense. the conroe is built off of everything from a coding chip to the server chip to the gaming enthusiast CPU. reliability at it's best.

guy up there sez it all. a good trick is to take away as much load from ther motherboard. so daughter cards will definetly help.

you need the best parts to keep the best systems running. conroe is a better choice right now.