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Windows Server 2008

harobikes333

harobikes333

Platinum Member
I currently can get windows server 2008 for free since I'm in college.

I'm looking for a rig to handle it and possibly run a website off of it.

Things to keep in mind:

I'm not even sure what all windows server is capable of doing.

I'm a college student.. lol
 
It's Vista without the game-playing capability and with some add-in services to run networks and host web sites. Whatever hardware is good enough to browse the Internet with Vista should be fine for Server 2008. A $10 video card will be fine and you won't need a sound card.
 
Wow thanks for the info.

So.... could you "try" to explain why huge / medium huge companies have to use. "servers" to run websites? etc.

I'd appreciate it a ton,

Thanks - mark
 
Yeah. I assumed that "possibly run a web site" implied a small site that doesn't make thousands of simultaneous connections and that doesn't lose thousands of dollars a minute if it's down.

Business servers typically are designed for high reliability (redundant RAID disk arrays and error correcting memory), fast disk access, and are often configured to control client PCs, networks, and other servers.
 
yeah, what makes a server is the uncompromising demand for reliability and redundancy. a server built of consumer parts perfectly suitable for your needs may be in operation 98% of the time and only cost $1000, but a "real" server of similar specifications made of server-grade parts may cost many, many times that. most of the cost goes into having multiple mirrors of the same storage system and multiple power supplies so that if one device fails, its supplement instantaneously takes over and no connections are lost. nowadays many servers are virtualized into a single physical machine, so the need for this reliability is increasingly imperative because any given hardware failure (especially power) results in an avalanche of software system failures. if it costs $20,000 to increase your uptime from 99% to 99.5%, then whatever. pay it.

do you need to worry about this? no. you can build a great server for $300 and get on with your site.
 
thanks for the info guys!

So... what kind of specs do I need to look for if I want to run a website that I hope would maybe get like 500-800 hits a day?

$300? Wow how could it be that cheap??

 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?ItemList=Combo.254106 (unlock that CPU to dual-core via ACC in BIOS)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/..._-20-148-221-_-Product (2GB no frills DDR3)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817703018 (370 W PCPC silencer)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811147109 (simple $25 case)

This is a fast, silent system for $200... just doesn't have any storage devices. Figure out what your needs are, what you plan to host, what space you need/are likely to need, whether you want to do RAID1, yada yada yada. The cost of running a private server is your upstream connection, not the hardware.

If you have an HDTV, another thing you could do would be to put these parts into an HTPC case, slide it somewhere among your hi-fi components and have this as a media repository/playback center on top of a web server. with 4GB of RAM, i would trust it with both of these tasks.
 
These is all really good info. For a server, you actually don't really need any performance CPU, RAM, or GPU-wise. All the money should go into the hard drives you need to store your stuff. The trick with building a personal server is to build something low-power and cost-efficient as possible.

Here is my windows home server thread just FYI.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=27&threadid=2329859
 
"500 to 800 hits a day" doesn't mean much by itself. That's an average of one hit every two minutes. Does a hit result in a single text page being delivered to the client, or does it mean that a 3 MegaByte MP3 file is uploaded and analyzed and compared to a million other songs for pattern matching?

The MSI Wind Barebones (Intel Atom-based) is 64-bit and can hold up to two GB of cheap memory, a DVD drive, and a single hard drive (or two hard drives if you don't need a DVD drive). It draws less than 40 Watts and is dead silent. It's $150 or less, plus memory, hard drive, and DVD drive if you want one.
MSI Wind Barebones
 
Uhm.... i would be just hosting a basic webpage. ( yahoo page for example isn't a ton of info / the ads, etc are hosted on other server )
 
if you're hosting it on yahoo, then everything is on their server and you have no need to buy your own box...
 
unless you need it for school, learning, or have other needs for the server you might be better off just getting a shared hosting plan with a webhost. a small hosting plan might cost $5, definitely less than $10 per month. Like if you need a portfolio site, personal site, or something like that.
 
Alyarb. I didn't ever say I was wanting to host it on yahoo. I was using yahoo as an example of how big a typical page would be. AKA not very big.

Anyone have any suggestion on a webhost if you guys don't think I should run my own server...?
 
Not saying you "shouldn't" necessarily. But if all your doing is just hosting a simple webpage, then yeah it's probably simpler, easier, and cheaper to just use a host. What is in this webpage? Can you just use a blog service like wordpress? Free and easy.

squarespace.com starts at $8/mo and has a free trial. I haven't used them, but I've heard the interface is super easy.

I've been using crystaltech.com for a few years and have been happy. They start at like $8/mo also

I know somebody who is using bluedomain and someone else using web.com. Godaddy I think also has a hosting service. There are tons of others out there.

Possible reasons you should host your own... You need lots of storage space. You are running custom apps that need special permission levels to run. You want to learn how to setup and maintain a server. You are using it for other stuff besides just a web server (file, printer sharing, etc).

Deterrents to running your own webserver... Cost. You have no idea what your doing and dont want to learn it. Your ISP blocks port 80 (standard web traffic port). Your upload speed with your ISP is tremendously slow.
 
Ok Let go to the begning.

The Hardware of the Server can be any thing from a Nice inexpensive energy saving Mobo based the Intel a 330 with single HD and 1GB of memory

To a Quadratic Quad system (I.e. 16 processors) with Multi RAID system with 64 (or more) GB memory.

State exactly what you would like the Server to be used for?

 
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