I'm thinking of building my own server. I'd like to set a budget for $700 or less. I have RAM and HDs already bought. My main question is about motherboards, cards (network) and CPUs. Can you give me advice on specific model #s to get? Also, are 1U or 2U rack cases cheap? From what I saw, mini-towers seem to be the cheapest but for space, I would love a rack mount model.

Thanks

Carlos

The rackmount case is what will kill you. $200 or so as best I can tell.

DN

1 or 2u cases wont go for under $200 with a power supply generally. What you build it into really depends on what you can get from your datacenter, if you can get the same price for a 1u as you can for a mid, and you know the data center is good, put it in a mid tower!

www.atxcase.com

$189 black 1U dual removable (NOT HOT SWAP!!) harddrive bays and a 300W power supply (yes, I said 300).

I use these and only these cases. Of course they're back ordered last I checked, hopefully I can order a few real soon :)

Originally posted by Dixiesys
www.atxcase.com

$189 black 1U dual removable (NOT HOT SWAP!!) harddrive bays and a 300W power supply (yes, I said 300).

I use these and only these cases. Of course they're back ordered last I checked, hopefully I can order a few real soon :)

I want one!:bawling:

Chris

Yeah I need two, yesterday I can't wait much longer for them to become available so I'll probably have to order a 150W/1U case from Mwave for $185 :(

Personally, unless you have experiece building your own 1u servers, I would advise you find a pre-built bareone one.

If top-notch performance isn't your concern ($700 says it is not)... the Intel ISP1100 at Newegg.com is a great deal from a great retailer. Has a lot of high-end features.

Downsides:
-- 100Mhz FSB CPU only... so your cpu selection is pretty limited.
-- IDE support limited to 33Mbps, but most drives can't keep up with that anyway... so not a big deal.
-- NO onboard video. It would require a PCI video card if you want to run Windows. Freebsd / Linux can be run without the video...

Plus:
-- very high quality dual network cards onboard. It also has TWO usable PCI slots... so you can add video card and still have a free slot.
-- cheap system if you want to go to 512MB of 1GB of RAM, I've used Crucial RAM in them without problem... bargain high quality stuff.

Newegg is a great vendor (similar to MWave) and offers great shipping on these.

I use these for firewalls... the two PCI slots + two onboard network cards allow for anything I need.

I also run Windows 2000 on one too... works great. My recommendation is to find an older Matrox PCI video card, they are supported officially by Intel and are cheap/easy to work with.

One more thing: given the choice between midtower and 1u... most ISP's give you substantial savings for 1u footprint. They charge you 4u price for a midtower.

So sure, a good Enlight case + power supply is $60 vs. a 1u case being $200... but you will easily save that in hosting cost in most cases. Go look at reputable places like affordablecolo.com, pwebtech.com, pajo.com - they all have good deals on 1u footprint.

It wasn't under $700 but here's what I got for $880 (all parts from Mwave.com cept the fan, had to order it from .. some other place I don't remember offhand for $26 including shipping):

P4 1.6Ghz Socket 478
Shuttle M50N motherboard onboard VGA/LAN
1 gig SDRam Mwave branded
60 gig 7200 RPM ATA 133 Maxtor
1U Black case 150W power supply
52X CDRom

Just need another unlimited Plesk and www8.dixiesys.com is ready to rock.

You might try the following:

Intel® Server Board S815EBM1 (Max 512 memory but 1 U Optiomized) Video and Lan are integrated.
Intel P III or Celeron 1.3 w/ 256k L2 Cache
Intel certified RA155c00B20 from Compucase
512 Ram
40 Gb 7200 RPM Drive

Definitely under $700 in quantity and without shipping.

Although we are not selling teh config as of now, the units that we have been testing have been way out performing our current offerings with increased relaibility and NO heat problems.

Good luck!

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

That's the other thing. If you need a control panel, you'll end up paying a fortune. In some cases, as much as you spend on the hardware.

If you end up needing an unlimited Plesk or Ensim, you're probably better of with a dedicated hosting company or even a managed server.

It seems that the one off pricing for the CPs such as Plesk and Ensim is WAY out there. But, I guess I understand why they do it.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Funny you should reply to this post Head Surfer. I just put in an order from RackShack, and I was thinking of building a server for my home so I coul experiment on it rather than the one I bought from you. 8)

Carlos

It definatly depends on what youre using the box for whether you can get away with patching together cheaper end parts.. like I wouldn't put a customers site on a server i threw together for $800 but something of my own where I was the only one affected in case of a hardware failure I wouldn't mind using lower end parts, just make sure you or the place your server is at has lots of spare parts on hand.

-Brendan