Purchasing a Server for Home

September 15, 2006 12:57 PM

Buying a server for experimenting at home.

My girlfriend recently started at Microsoft, and would like me to buy/build her a server so that she can try out various stuff on it. This would not (at this point in time) be an outside facing server, just something that sits on the home network.

My budget for this is in the ~$600 range, but that doesn't need to include any OS (obviously she gets discounts on those). It's probably going to be running some combination of Windows Server 2003, SQL, and TFS, so using one of my old PCs lying around isn't really going to cut it.

Right now I'm looking at a couple of different dells, which brings me to a related question. Assuming I go the Dell route for purchasing my server, is there any reason I should get a PowerEdge (830) over a Dimension (9200) when the dimension is cheaper and seemingly better equipped?

If I shouldn't go the Dell route, who would you recommend?

posted by KirTakat to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Unless you need a huge enclosure and PCI slots, buy a cheap Mac Mini and run Boot Camp on it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:07 PM on September 15, 2006

There's no reason not to use a Dimension, if it's a toy project. The poweredge is for redundant hardware, like multiple power supplies, hardware raid, SCSI drives, etc. If you just want to mess with software, any old computer will do.
posted by knave at 1:12 PM on September 15, 2006

Good idea on the Mini for a cheap machine.
Also, don't run the OS directly. Install either VMWare or, if you get the Mini, Parallels. This way she can wipe the server and start over without having to reinstall the whole OS over and over again.

On VMWare at least, you can copy the drive image it creates so that you always have a starting point with the OS installed and patched but not yet configured. This will save you a TON of time.
posted by Eddie Mars at 1:13 PM on September 15, 2006

The Poweredge server series isn't necessary, or any "formal" servers; if she's just interested in playing with servers/hosting, any old PC should be fine. I have a dual 600MHz with 1G of ram as my primary server for a variety of outward facing apps, and it works great- it's about 6 years old at this point. :) Win2k3 runs on it fine, hosts a number of services.

About the only consideration you might have is going dual proc on your box- if this is a kick-me for experimentation and learning purposes, the dual proc setup will be more like a 'real' server than a single-proc box. You might choose the small business section, and check out the precision line of desktops: a little pricier than Dimensions, but will typically come with dual proc options and more memory.

Or you can forego Dell altogether, and get something from newegg.com or a similar shop, and build yourself. She's going to buy Win2k3 from the company store anyway, so the pre-installed XP will almost be more of a nuisance on the Dells.

And seconding on preview: she can get a cheap copy of Virtual Server at the company store as well, and *really* go to town on playing with all sorts of things, and even having a multi-machine virtual LAN on her desktop.
posted by hincandenza at 1:16 PM on September 15, 2006

I wouldn't go with the Mac Mini, because that supports windows XP, not Windows Server 2003, unless someone's made a hack to support that. And it's still more expensive than a similarly equipped Dell.

The only meaninful thing I see that the poweredge 830 offers is the remote access card, which is pretty cool, but not something that would do you any good with a home server. (None that I can tell, anyways.)

I bet the poweredge has a noisier power supply.

Also if you call Dell for help installing the OS, the poweredge support might at least be willing to offer help with Server 2003, whereas the desktop folks might just say that's an unsupported OS and refuse to help. I doubt their help would be required or all that helpful in either case, though.

I personally would go with the cheapest machine I could find with the specs I was looking for.
posted by mragreeable at 1:21 PM on September 15, 2006

I suppose I should have laid out the plans a little better than I did, I apologize.

Yes, the plan is to get Virtual Server and have it running at least two servers. One with SQL, and one with Team Foundation Server, both using Server 2003, with plans to move them to Longhorn Server at some point. Because of this, while a Mac Mini might be nice (and I'm actually ordering one for my own purposes), I don't know that it would be the ideal server for hosting all that. If nothing else, I think it's driver support for 2003 is lacking, and it's support for Longhorn Server is probably non-existent.

This is not for her to learn how to setup a server, I'll take care of all the administration of it, this is for her to use in testing Visual Studio Team Systems, and for use in developing applications on that platform (mostly demos and the such).
posted by KirTakat at 1:27 PM on September 15, 2006

I personally would go with the cheapest machine I could find with the specs I was looking for.

In that light, is there a better deal than the Dells? Is there some other company you would recommend?

I could build my own PC I know, but I'm not sure I'd save that much money doing it, if you look at some of the deals one can get these days.
posted by KirTakat at 1:28 PM on September 15, 2006

Tigerdirect is clearing out their stock of not-so-top-of-the-line stuff lately, since the new Intel and AMD chips came out. Check out their Barebone kits, in various flavors. Some include pretty much all you'd need ($299.99!), some are really just barebones.
posted by dammitjim at 1:44 PM on September 15, 2006

If you're looking for a cheap system that doesn't have to be cutting edge, I'd recommend checking out Geeks.com first.
posted by jzb at 2:16 PM on September 15, 2006

I'd recommend building it yourself not for saving money but because it's fun and you're in complete control of the system. You can get a much smaller, nicer case than cheap Dells have and not waste money on components you don't need.

It's particularly easy and organized with a barebone kit like these.
posted by Doctor Barnett at 2:53 PM on September 15, 2006

Also look at buying used.... You can get computers for pretty cheap off Craigslist, and as long as you stipulate that you need a 36-hour period for burning in the hardware and doing disk-drive tests, you'll end up with a lot of machine for less money.
posted by hatsix at 3:26 PM on September 15, 2006

Get two hard drives and 2GB of memory. Other than that, go with something cheap. As others have said, building your own means that you don't put money into unnecessary things.
posted by Good Brain at 7:24 PM on September 15, 2006

retrobox has great prices for Americans (watch out for the steep shipping price though). The problem with that will be memory.. They won't include a lot, and old memory types can be hard to find and expensive (they can also be abundant and cheap, but you have to stay up to date on a lot of stuff to know the details - DDR1600/2100 seems very very cheap right now).

Maybe just buy new.. Pentium D 805 based, I think - hardly any cheaper processors available, and still supper capable. For motherboard you want anything that is cheap, but has support for lots of ram, and lots of drives.

If you are looking to play around with exotic stuff on the cheap, I find the buy/sell/trade forums at 2cpu are really great.
posted by Chuckles at 10:34 PM on September 15, 2006

"I bet the poweredge has a noisier power supply"

Nope, the PowerEdge 830 is freaky quiet. The rackmountable servers are farkin' loud sometimes (like the 2650, 2850, and 2950) but the little workgroup server series (420, 430, 830) are very very quiet. I used to have one under my desk and I always forgot it was there because it was so quiet. We have a few PowerEdge 430 units at work and they're also very quiet.

I'd forgo the "build it yourself" route and just go for the PowerEdge 830. It's pretty cheap, the entire box is on the Windows Server 2003 HQL, and Dell will support it. It's a fairly inexpensive way to go and is well within your budget. Just toss some more RAM in it and call it soup.
posted by drstein at 10:39 PM on September 15, 2006