So, here I am, acquiring servers and computers left and right for rock bottom prices (thank you craigslist and ebay), and I'm just about ready to make a move towards clearing out a section in my basement to setup my servers. The system will include:
HP DL385 (Will start as a storage server as it is filled with drives atm) <$40>
Dell PE 1850 (Minecraft Server) <$100>
Dell PE 2500 (Team Speak) <$40>
Dell Optiplex GX280 (Web Database Server) <$80>
Dell Optiplex 320 (Web Server) <$80>
Compaq iPaq (Local Network Web Testing Environment) <WAS FREE>
For the time being, I will be handling just one server (the iPaq) as a test environment on my wifi router and cable modem. But eventually, I will invest in a dedicated high speed line for the servers. My question is, what additional hardware will I need to invest in when I get this dedicated line installed? I know I will be grabbing some rack mountable UPS's, some PDU's, and a portable AC unit, but what else will I need. Any recommendations for routers and switches?
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Did you say iPaq? Man, that takes me back, lol. A lot of the HP thin clients we use seem to be directly descended from them, unless you mean the PDA iPaq, in which case, well, to be fair, in either case, not sure I'd want to be working with either, to be honest.
Last edited by FileTrekker; December 16th, 2012 at 02:28 PM.
Did you say iPaq? Man, that takes me back, lol. A lot of the HP thin clients we use seem to be directly descended from them, unless you mean the PDA iPaq, in which case, well, to be fair, in either case, not sure I'd want to be working with either, to be honest.
Yes, it's the desktop. 'tis a piece of crap if you ask me, but I got the ipaq for free from school so I could test various server OS's, I'm probably going to set it up on my local network for testing functionality...will be setup identical to the main web server. Don't ask...I just want to put it to use.
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Last edited by GateCrusher420; December 16th, 2012 at 02:30 PM.
I would just be concerned, if it's anything like the stuff we use, that it'd be too underpowered to do anything meaningful, but it depends what you're trying to do with it, I guess. Web servers I assume?
But I don't see something designed as a terminal or thin client system handling server duty particularly well, even in a test environment. I'm not sure what your plans are, btw, but dedicated or even VPS servers might prove more cost effective and more reliable, after you factor in power, connection and other utility costs?
Last edited by FileTrekker; December 16th, 2012 at 02:45 PM.
I would just be concerned, if it's anything like the stuff we use, that it'd be too underpowered to do anything meaningful, but it depends what you're trying to do with it, I guess. Web servers I assume?
But I don't see something designed as a terminal or thin client system handling server duty particularly well, even in a test environment. I'm not sure what your plans are, btw, but dedicated or even VPS servers might prove more cost effective and more reliable, after you factor in power, connection and other utility costs?
You are right...I'm mostly using it right now to get used to Sudo commands, etc. I have an older dl160 being dropped off in a couple of days from work that they don't use anymore, so that will replace it. And I have taken into account those costs, which won't be too bad...I'm splitting the bill with two other people, so it's not that big of a dent in my wallet, nor theirs.
Now...on to the hardware. Any recommendations on other additions? Security, routers, hardware, etc.
My YouTube - HERE
My Site - HERE
My Other Site - HERE
Last edited by GateCrusher420; December 16th, 2012 at 02:52 PM.
If I may make a suggestion, a newer budget server from somebody like Supermicro would probably outperform ALL of those machines put together, and use half the power of one of them. I know it's probably not what you want to hear after acquiring such a collection, but take a look. At geeks.com for $300 I got 24GB of RAM, 2xL5320 Xeons (quad-core @ 1.86MHz, no HT), 500GB hard drive. I put in another hard drive and run it as a vSphere host capable of easily handling all of my server load. The most I've had running was 4 but I could easily do 8, with the practical limit being the hard drive. Not to mention the advantage of a modern 64-bit processor compared to pentium-4 era 32-bit processors.
You'd save a ton of money on electricity, and you'd need fewer UPSes, fewer switches, and fewer PDUs. Not to mention less cooling, I don't even have any sort of special cooling arrangement. The L5320 is a little weak, but a pair of L5420s at 2.5GHz are on ebay for under $50. The only other thing you'd want to invest in at that point would be some kind of network storage as an iSCSI target for vSphere.
Unfortunately the one I bought is no longer in stock, and none of their other servers have more than 16GB out of the box, even the more expensive Dells and HPs. (Except the super-micro dual-board server they sell which is basically 2 servers in one chassis)(Actually I stand corrected. They sell a 2U supermicro model with 4 dual-core optorons and 32GB of RAM.)
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Last edited by D3matt; December 16th, 2012 at 03:08 PM.
If I may make a suggestion, a newer budget server from somebody like Supermicro would probably outperform ALL of those machines put together, and use half the power of one of them. I know it's probably not what you want to hear after acquiring such a collection, but take a look. At geeks.com for $300 I got 24GB of RAM, 2xL5320 Xeons (quad-core @ 1.86MHz, no HT), 500GB hard drive. I put in another hard drive and run it as a vSphere host capable of easily handling all of my server load. The most I've had running was 4 but I could easily do 8, with the practical limit being the hard drive. Not to mention the advantage of a modern 64-bit processor compared to pentium-4 era 32-bit processors.
You'd save a ton of money on electricity, and you'd need fewer UPSes, fewer switches, and fewer PDUs. Not to mention less cooling, I don't even have any sort of special cooling arrangement. The L5320 is a little weak, but a pair of L5420s at 2.5GHz are on ebay for under $50. The only other thing you'd want to invest in at that point would be some kind of network storage as an iSCSI target for vSphere.
Unfortunately the one I bought is no longer in stock, and none of their other servers have more than 16GB out of the box, even the more expensive Dells and HPs. (Except the super-micro dual-board server they sell which is basically 2 servers in one chassis)(Actually I stand corrected. They sell a 2U supermicro model with 4 dual-core optorons and 32GB of RAM.)
I'll look into the supermicro based stuff and maybe with christmas cash, I'll invest in something. But for the time being, what I have is unfortunately what I'm going to have to run (I also like having the ability to run separate systems for separate things).
My YouTube - HERE
My Site - HERE
My Other Site - HERE
I'll look into the supermicro based stuff and maybe with christmas cash, I'll invest in something. But for the time being, what I have is unfortunately what I'm going to have to run (I also like having the ability to run separate systems for separate things).
Supermicro's not the only option. I'm not sure what your budget's like but Geeks.com sells a lot of dells and a few HPs as well. The supermicro stuff is cheaper, and for a reason. Generally only a single PSU, generally only one or 2 internally mounted drives, a flimsier chassis. Unless you go for the more expensive models. Great for the budget though.
With virtualization you DO have separate servers for each task, they're just all virtual. It's way better in any environment, but a lab environment especially. It's faster to boot because you don't go through the BIOS, it's easy to set up new VMs remotely, you can manage them from anywhere instead of needing to be with the physical machine. You can make snapshots, which is great for testing stuff. If you use one physical box for each role you'll find yourself running out of boxes as you start coming up with new ideas. With virtualization you can easily just add another VM.
Sorry, I don't mean to preach, virtualization is just really awesome :P And I've been there with outdated 32-bit servers, and the difference is completely night and day. I do miss having 10K RPM hard drives, but like I said, geeks.com does sell some dells and HPs, some of which have 10K or even 15K SAS drives.
Supermicro's not the only option. I'm not sure what your budget's like but Geeks.com sells a lot of dells and a few HPs as well. The supermicro stuff is cheaper, and for a reason. Generally only a single PSU, generally only one or 2 internally mounted drives, a flimsier chassis. Unless you go for the more expensive models. Great for the budget though.
With virtualization you DO have separate servers for each task, they're just all virtual. It's way better in any environment, but a lab environment especially. It's faster to boot because you don't go through the BIOS, it's easy to set up new VMs remotely, you can manage them from anywhere instead of needing to be with the physical machine. You can make snapshots, which is great for testing stuff. If you use one physical box for each role you'll find yourself running out of boxes as you start coming up with new ideas. With virtualization you can easily just add another VM.
Sorry, I don't mean to preach, virtualization is just really awesome :P And I've been there with outdated 32-bit servers, and the difference is completely night and day. I do miss having 10K RPM hard drives, but like I said, geeks.com does sell some dells and HPs, some of which have 10K or even 15K SAS drives.
Oh yeah, I know that...and had I thought about VM's earlier, I would have put that money towards the software needed and them invested in a fairly beefy server.
I know I'm going to want dedicated rigs for whatever game servers I host.
My YouTube - HERE
My Site - HERE
My Other Site - HERE
Oh yeah, I know that...and had I thought about VM's earlier, I would have put that money towards the software needed and them invested in a fairly beefy server.
I know I'm going to want dedicated rigs for whatever game servers I host.
Nope and Nope. ESXi has a free version up to 32GB of RAM, no paying needed. I run a minecraft server in a virtual environment and I know plenty of other people who host game servers virtually as well. It's a lot more efficient since a lot of game servers are only lightly-threaded, and it's a bit of a waste to have 4 or 8 cores and having two at 100% and the others at 5%. With virtualization, the others would be busy doing somebody else in a different VM. I have one hard drive almost exclusively used by minecraft, and it performs just fine in a virtual machine.
As for hardware costs, like I said... You can invest in 6 $50-100 servers and pay a ton of electric costs, or one 300-600$ server and pay a lot less. Granted, you do already have 5 machines so that makes the decision a bit more difficult.
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