how important is a server mb vs regular mb

jimluu

Member
May 13, 2008
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I'm looking to recycle some of my old computers into storage servers. Do you have to have a 'server' motherboard and server operating system? I had used a plain old computer with windows xp as a server and the problem I ran into was that it takes around 20 seconds to wake up if inactive for a while. Was this due to the mb, OS, or something else?
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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Server is generally required when availability and stability are paramount. A desktop makes a fine storage solution. XP is limited to 10 simultaneous connections which is fine for a small user workgroup. Account management can be an issue but if the clients have matching accounts on the "server" then access is ok. Alternatively you can enable the guest account if that's what you want. :Q

In the BIOS make sure any power management (idle hard drive time out, etc) is DISABLED and in Windows do the same. It's ok to use a screen saver if a monitor is attached (use an easy on the cpu one like blank screen!) and you can also set the monitor to go off after a period of time to save energy.

Finally, disable the power management on the nic (settings "allow the computer to turn this device off to save energy" or similar. This will ensure shared data is always available.