Building A Webserver
BaconTheory
Join Date: 2003-09-06 Member: 20615Members
Join Date: 2003-09-06 Member: 20615Members
<div class="IPBDescription">What to buy</div> For a while now I have been thinking of building a webserver, primarily to host myself a website and also store some files and use it as a file server. I would most likeley also offer web hosting to others. My question is this: What parts should I buy to make a webserver? As far as the case goes, small and asthetically pleasing would be good, becasue it has to go in my dad's home office (the location of router). I'm thinking that if people want speedy uploads and downloads I would want to set up RAID, but I'm not sure. Please give your input on this. Keep in mind, it doesnt have to be a powerhouse becasue its only going to be working with files. Also, try to keep it as cheap as possible.
Here are parts that I have picked out so far:
Systemax Gray ATX Mid-Tower Case with 300W Power Supply
Abit KV8 Socket 754 Motherboard
Athlon 64 2800+ Processor
ULTRA 512MB DDR RAM
LSI RAID Controller Card
2 Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives
Linux
Here are parts that I have picked out so far:
Systemax Gray ATX Mid-Tower Case with 300W Power Supply
Abit KV8 Socket 754 Motherboard
Athlon 64 2800+ Processor
ULTRA 512MB DDR RAM
LSI RAID Controller Card
2 Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives
Linux
Comments
If space isn't a big issue, I would go with 2x 36 gb raptors in RAID 0 if you're going to fileserve and if lots of people want it at once.
It'll depend mainly on your connection, though. Web-servers and file-servers aren't resource intensive at all, just get a good connection and hard drive configuration.
PS: The RAID controller card that I listed in my first post is a RAID 0+1.
Box-wise, considering your site won't be capable of hosting that much bandwidth-wise, that's probably overkill depending on the OS you go with. Definately overkill if you go with linux (and why the hell wouldn't you!)
What sort of web site are you going to run? MySQL database? PHP, JSP, or ASP? Perl?
I think you're wasting your money on a RAID, as bandwidth will be more of a speed cap than hdd access ever will.
Also, AMD's make crappy servers. Que the fanboys going "omgs no"
Box-wise, considering your site won't be capable of hosting that much bandwidth-wise, that's probably overkill depending on the OS you go with. Definately overkill if you go with linux (and why the hell wouldn't you!)
What sort of web site are you going to run? MySQL database? PHP, JSP, or ASP? Perl?
I think you're wasting your money on a RAID, as bandwidth will be more of a speed cap than hdd access ever will.
Also, AMD's make crappy servers. Que the fanboys going "omgs no" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
OMGS NO!! AMD PWNS JOO!!!
But seriously, for a server, go with a Xeon. And get a fiber optic connection from Verizon (If they offer it in your area) ADSL won't give you a verry big server.
Box-wise, considering your site won't be capable of hosting that much bandwidth-wise, that's probably overkill depending on the OS you go with. Definately overkill if you go with linux (and why the hell wouldn't you!)
What sort of web site are you going to run? MySQL database? PHP, JSP, or ASP? Perl?
I think you're wasting your money on a RAID, as bandwidth will be more of a speed cap than hdd access ever will.
Also, AMD's make crappy servers. Que the fanboys going "omgs no" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Opterons>you
o.0 There is a god...
Box-wise, considering your site won't be capable of hosting that much bandwidth-wise, that's probably overkill depending on the OS you go with. Definately overkill if you go with linux (and why the hell wouldn't you!)
What sort of web site are you going to run? MySQL database? PHP, JSP, or ASP? Perl?
I think you're wasting your money on a RAID, as bandwidth will be more of a speed cap than hdd access ever will.
Also, AMD's make crappy servers. Que the fanboys going "omgs no" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
if you haven't noticed, amds are cheaper than intels and for the same price, amd runs better.
256/128
512/256
1024/256
2048/256?
If you live in the Uk than thats about the only choices you have. A web server running on 256k up aint going to be that great. You may as well buy a duron bases system <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Thats what I use as my web server, Duron 1400, cause my upload sucks.
Box-wise, considering your site won't be capable of hosting that much bandwidth-wise, that's probably overkill depending on the OS you go with. Definately overkill if you go with linux (and why the hell wouldn't you!)
What sort of web site are you going to run? MySQL database? PHP, JSP, or ASP? Perl?
I think you're wasting your money on a RAID, as bandwidth will be more of a speed cap than hdd access ever will.
Also, AMD's make crappy servers. Que the fanboys going "omgs no" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
omgs no
Dual Opterons should outperform a Dual Xeon setup.
I once was running apache from this machine i'm using now, ran perfectly even when doing a multitude of other things, but the main reason i killed it was because of the awful speeds. That was on 512/256 kbit ADSL, the real killer is the 256, which is what your ADSL probably is. The inbound speed makes very little difference (Except with uploads), and having just 25kB/s to server one website with, let alone multiple, things can get extremely laggy.
Anyway, a webserver is no better than it's connection, and if you're on ADSL, you could have the best server ever but the websites would still suffer from having extremely limited bandwidth available.
If you were, however, to build a nice server, consider going colo, then at least your server box will be going to good use.
From what you said in your first post, I don't know how many concurrent users you expect but I assume it is not large. Since you plan on running this machine as a dedicated server you probably don't need too much in way of a high end system.
My suggestion is to save some cash and go with a moderate system for a file server.
edit: In short, make sure it is not your connection that is the bottleneck.