An Above Decent Server...

Looking for advice on a server that will preform these fuctions...

1. Web Server. (More than one site.)
2. Mail Server.
3. FTP Server.
4. Domain Controller.
5. NWN or Freelancer Server... (In otherwords, a Game Server.)
6. File Server.
7. Printer Server.

I am an Intel Fan-Boy, I admit that freely, but the prices and performance of an AMD can't be disputed... Well... It can and has been, but that isn't what I am interested in at the moment. I do wonder what setup everyone else thinks would work well to handle all those functions... And yes, a Dual CPU system is something I am considering. Please give me your advice, system specs and all, that would be able to handle this load properly, without any overclocking, RAM and all...

Another question would be, Linux or Windows 2003 Server solution? Though I think I will make a poll out of that...

Let us keep the price at a max of $3000 Canadian... The cheaper, the better... As long as ability is not destroyed.

Looking for advice on a server that will preform these fuctions...

1. Web Server. (More than one site.)
2. Mail Server.
3. FTP Server.
4. Domain Controller.
5. NWN or Freelancer Server... (In otherwords, a Game Server.)
6. File Server.
7. Printer Server.

I am an Intel Fan-Boy, I admit that freely, but the prices and performance of an AMD can't be disputed... Well... It can and has been, but that isn't what I am interested in at the moment. I do wonder what setup everyone else thinks would work well to handle all those functions... And yes, a Dual CPU system is something I am considering. Please give me your advice, system specs and all, that would be able to handle this load properly, without any overclocking, RAM and all...

Another question would be, Linux or Windows 2003 Server solution? Though I think I will make a poll out of that...

Let us keep the price at a max of $3000 Canadian... The cheaper, the better... As long as ability is not destroyed.

I voted windows because its easier to setup, yes I like linux,and IMO am pretty proficient with it, its just not as easy to work with as windows, if you want it to work, linux, but if you want it to work for you and not you for it, windows

I wish you had a depends choice. If it comes down to money and you don't have enough Linux will do(Free). I would recommend Windows 2003 Server because so far I have been impressed.;)

I've run that with a dual PIII 500 box and 2gig of ram without coming close to maxing it out. If you're going to run all that stuff make sure you invest in a good backup device.

This would do the trick very nicely and it's cheap too. Then just pick yourself a cheap nas box for MP3 storage (or just some huge drives in a RAID 0, 1, or 0+1 configuration to the existing box) , something to back it up with and some more memory...

Mmmmm you can do all that with any old processor !!! Perhaps a bit more slowly but you never said anything about that !! :D

Lots of memory & fast i/o (storage devices) would come higher up my list than processor ... you ain't really 'doing' anything - but moving it, & you don't really need much processing power for that ....

If it comes down to can I have twin xenon's or a fast array of scsi disks ... I know which ones will impact more ... ;)

Quote:

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Originally posted by confus-ed


If it comes down to can I have twin xenon's or a fast array of scsi disks ... I know which ones will impact more ... ;)

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With that action above you can have BOTH :)

Gotta hurry though, only two hours left, price is at $590.

2 – Pentium III 500Mhz Xeon Processors (Step code: SL2XV)

512 MG Memory

Smart Array Raid Controller

5 – 9.1 GB 10,000 RPM Wide Ultra 2 SCSI Hot Swap Drives

your gonna need some serious internet connection to run all that.
also would reccomend a gig nic.

as for linux or windows, well it kinda depends on how experinced you are at networking. if you are learning, i would reccomend windows, as it does a suprisingly large amount of the server setup with easy wizards, whereas wiht linux you will be hunting down config files scattred all over the opertaing system (depending slightly on distro).

additionally, most of the easier distros (red hat, mandrake etc) charge money (athlogh not as much as windows) for the server edition of thier os.

i would strongly reccomend dual cpus if the server is typically going to be running all or lots of those tasks at the same time, but you can probably get away with a fast ide raid 5 array (use a decent controller though). for a server like that, i would tend to choose dual slower cpus than a single fast cpu, as niether linux or windows always have particularly intelligent cpu sharing for services in my experinces.

something like a dual athlon mp 1gig should cope with plenty of overhead to spare.
remember that the cheaper hd controller and nic card you buy, the more the cpu gets taxed, so if you get really good controllers and nic then you could run it quite happily with mcuh less powerful cpus.

i haent actually got to windows 2003 yet, sadly i only have 56k to play with while broadband is down :( but i have used and liked windows 2k adv server.

particualrly if you go with windows, get a large (and i do mean large) amount of ram, as not only is the core os memory hungry, the individual services tend to be less memory efficent.

- a bit disjointed, but i hope it helps anyway

Hang on a minute 3000 canadian dollars is like £1350 ... or $2000 usd ..... I read it as us dollars originally ...

You might just squeak twin pentium 111s & a board & some 'average' scsi drives for that ... so no xenons for you ! :p ... unless as suggested you go 'pre-used' .... if you have 'big' storage requirements you might have to use ide disks to stay in budget (the difference between IDE & scsi in the 'mid' range is practically nil performance wise, but not so reliabilty wise)

I'd say dual cpu's look favourite as you are definately doing several things at once, remember the more memory the better whatever o/s ....

As for o/s you get more effective use of resources with linux than you ever do with Uncle Bills bloatware ... but quite a lot more difficulty in getting it going !

Mods, this is double posted in AMD and Intel, could these threads me merged so that we may discuss this in one place?

I did wonder... will merge them now.