Voodoo

Heyy abc!

A friend of mine has a website, which I shan't name because that's against the rules and shizz is currently looking for a PC to act as a server for it. I suggested he should build one which is why I am here asking what would best.

edit: budget would be around AU$400-500

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abc

uh... a server? urrrm...

The most expensive CPU you can afford that says "xeon" or "opteron" on it?
2 of the fastest HDD you can afford - Velociraptors (150GB, very noisy, fast, 2 because backups are essential)
RAID 1 (free but flawed) or expensive backup software or, custom made backup software (creating a little program to do simple backups (i.e. backup everything every 60 mins can't be that hard and would be possible for a total novice to compile with the help of a forum & google)
Most reliable PSU you can afford - corsair CX400?
memory - lots of it. ECC? (never crashes/freezes) although I suspect it'll take up the whole budget!
the rest.


What's this website for?

Low traffic website, high traffic website, selling 10 flower pots a day or selling $K s a day? Does it need customer interaction? databases? yada yada.

For a server I reckon your best bet is definitely renting one. You can build your own $400 server, or you can rent a space on a $3000 server (thus therefore has expensive backup solutions, the type of memory that doesn't ever crash, 100MB/s internet connection, more power than you'd ever need, comes with free tech support & expertise etc)

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This is getting repetitive.

Voodoo

Yeah I realise it's a bit out of your normal questions :P, I'll get him to have a look at some of this. Fairly low traffic, mainly needs memory.

Did I tell you about the new server my dad bought for work?

32gb RAM
4xquadcore
12x450gb RAID configured firbeoptic HDDs

I want to steal one (he bought 2)

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ChoongJing

i just got a SteelSeries 5hv2, i tried googling it and there is plenty of missed opinions about it. I am just asking if anyone have this headset and tell me if it is good or not.

abc

Fail. That is being deleted after sufficient people have laughed at your mistake ^^^


WTF is a 450GB fibre optic HDD.

And well demonstrating my point, thank you. Server material is dual/quad socket xeons/opterons with ECC memory and $10,000 RAID controllers to cope with the 10 drives (all 15k SCSI naturally...) etc etc.

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"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.

Nibbles

He's probably referring to the Fibre Channel interface which is the next step up from SCSI.

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Voodoo, it really depends on the availability of the site and reliability required, but $500 isn't going to get you very far in terms of hardware. I would go with a hosting provider. There are many about - I have been using midphase.com - have had a .com and .org site hosted with them for about 3-4 years now which I have used for a variety of things from an FTP server, to web forum, to web based photo archive, blog, etc.

No bandwidth cap IIRC and a fair bit of storage space plus a database for apps that need it (eg just about everything) - never had a problem with speed either (though I havent done anything heavy on it for a while). Backups are all done for you, support & maintenance is built into the costs and availability is pretty good (I have seldom noticed my sites be unavailable). Plus you get email addresses with your domain name, etc etc...

Plus I don't think I have paid more than $500 all up for the hosting service over the past 4 years.

Shop around and read some reviews of other providers - it's a pretty competitive market these days and prices can be incredibly low in comparison to reliably running your own connection and server.

If your mate really wants to host it himself, then any old machine will do if its a low traffic site. The cost of most server hardware really revolves around speeds that you will never probably need to worry about hitting and reliability. Bare in mind, you still gotta fuck about setting it all up and maintaining it which can be a pain in the arse (though fun to learn about if you have the time & inclination), and you will need to find some provider to host your DNS details on their nameserver anyway. And you will need to ask your ISP nicely for a static IP address (good luck getting one of those for free these days).

But unless you are planning on setting up something massive like the next Amazon, Twitter, Facebook or Google site, I would just go with a standard sub $100 per year hosted service - most of them will sort you out with free domain name registration on sign-up too IIRC.