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Server vs. Desktop

Server vs. Desktop

I'm looking to build a set of home servers to play around with. In doing so they will be on full time, looking to run a very low volume family web site, and probably a file server with SFTP etc on it as a separate device.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 213
Total answers/comments: 4
Guest [Entry]

"Do not buy server hardware for this. For this use-case, such hardware is absolutely not required.

You buy server hardware where it costs you lots of money to power the machine down, say to change a harddrive.. You don't need redundant power-supplies, hot-swappable drives and RAID for your family website..

Do not use RAID (specifically RAID-1, mirroring) - RAID-1 is used so you can be up-and-running quickly after a drive-failure, not as a backup.. It probably doesn't matter if the site is down for an hour while you restore a backup, but it is a problem if you lose the data!

Instead of RAID, use the second drive to routinely clone the system (every night), or copy important data (the site and file-server contents). It's also a good idea to do an ""off-site"" backup once a month (either with a second drive, which you send back and forth, or an online service like Mozy)"
Guest [Entry]

"There's nothing strictly designated as ""server"" hardware. For your specific needs, web server/file server,

500GB+ SATA hard disk
1GB of RAM
Celeron CPU

should do the trick."
Guest [Entry]

I agree with Jonathan. For what you want to do, just recycle one of you old systems or find someone who recently upgraded theirs and see if they will let you have their old system or sell it to you on the cheap. As long as it isn't ancient it will work fine. If you are planning on using Linux as your OS almost anything will work.
Guest [Entry]

"I spent at least a dozen years playing with various hardware configurations trying to build a perfect home server. I started with the cheapest PC under my desk running FreeBSD, then moved to an industrial strength server running Fedora Core OS, then a recycled old laptop with Ubuntu Server, then a hacked Linksys NAS with custom firmware and a bunch of packages for a web server, ftp, etc. In the end, I settled on a vanilla consumer-grade NAS (Network-Attached Storage) and I supplement it with various services ""from the Cloud"". I use Google Apps to store and share documents, calendars and to host email, for example. I use Google AppEngine to host my many websites (it requires programming skills, check out Google Sites or any number of blog hosting services if you do not want to learn programming). I use http://rsync.net and MobileMe for offsite backup (there's also Mozy and many other services that are easier to use than rsync, for example). I use del.icio.us for bookmarks, flickr.com to store and share images, and so on and so forth.

All this is to say that unless you have a copious amounts of free time to invest into building and maintaining your own infrastructure, you'd be better off my going with the hosted services. Yes, it often costs money (albeit usually not much) and privacy is always a concern, but you won't have to spend your weekends in the ""server closet"" in your basement trying to patch your crashed media server just so your wife could watch the latest episode of ""Project Runway"".

The NAS that is my ""home server"" now: Western Digital MyBook World Edition NAS."