Home server new or used

[russell2002]

Hi,

I need a server to which 12 comps will be connected at home.

I can either use a normal new comp or buy a second hand server.

Wondered how this would perform againt a new desktop say AMD 3000 ect.

IBM Netfinity 4 x Xeon 500Mhz.

400-600$ region....

Any ideas.

 

[Crescent13]

Buy AMD? 4 500mhz xeon's looks kindof slow. Your computer is probably already faster than something for ~$500.

EDIT: didn't read the whole thing, how about a X2 desktop.

 

[DaveSimmons]

LAN gaming server or just a storage / file server?

How much space (GB) do you need? Is this "stuff" that you don't mind losing when a hard drive fails?

You can use any PC as a server, you don't need to buy something that calls itself a server.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What's it going to be doing? What's your budget?

 

[imported_Kensai]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
What's it going to be doing? What's your budget?

^

 

[Atheus]

I say buy a used server.

You can get a board from someone like serverworks rather than someone like VIA and it will come with SCSI controllers and 64-bit PCI and all those goodies. And it won't break down much either.

Also keep in mind that with 4 xeons you can handle 4 requests for data simultaniously, whereas with a single P4 or whatever you can handle one or maybe two in ideal situations.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Atheus
I say buy a used server.

You can get a board from someone like serverworks rather than someone like VIA and it will come with SCSI controllers and 64-bit PCI and all those goodies. And it won't break down much either.

Also keep in mind that with 4 xeons you can handle 4 requests for data simultaniously, whereas with a single P4 or whatever you can handle one or maybe two in ideal situations.

Good advice for a high-load SQL server. Less good for a home file server serving up a mass of media files where network bandwidth is going to be the real bottleneck and lots of storage space is more important than transactions per second.

The OP did a post-and-run so we have no idea which usage scenario applies 🙂

 

[russell2002]

It needs to provide internet access to all comps.

All comps are downloading all the time.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: russell2002
It needs to provide internet access to all comps.

All comps are downloading all the time.

As long as you aren't doing much caching proxying, have a huge pipe, or plan on using a super advanced firewall ruleset just about anything should be fine.