Spec me a linux server pc

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Hi.

my current pentium 4 northwood linux pc is beginning to fail on me now and now is the time to do a new build.

looking for a cheapish build for a case that can hold 4 or more sata hdd's, mobo(6 sata ports), cpu and ram.

i will be using my old seasonic psu and current hdd's to power it.

my budget is around £200.

it must be fast enough to host a dev environment running sql, jboss, glassfish and tomcat.

i will also be running sabnzbd newsgroup server, a svn and/or GIT repository as well as the usual file server stuff from samba.

I will also develop a script that will sync and backup certain files from all my pc's connected to the network too.

the OS it will run is Ubuntu server. Also needs vga/dvi output so i can connect a monitor to it. not looking for a graphics card or anything, just inbuild GPU .

i heard the intel atoms might be sufficient but i feel they may be too slow. any old low powered dual cores i can use?

i want it to be dead quiet and efficient as possible

cheers all

[shaithis]

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9C...EFSUnBxclFuTE0

Scan don't seem to stock the non-FX am3 CPUs anymore...

[DavidM]

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...000mhz-65w-oem - is a none FX AM3 CPU.

Also: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...he-125w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-s...mhz-45w-retail

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This motherboard and CPU should do the job:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...hdmi-micro-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...che-65w-retail

OTH,the cheaper AMD CPUs do have better support for virtualisation than cheaper Intel CPUs. Both have IGPs.

This FM1 based setup is also worth considering:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...mhz-65w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...s-on-board-mat

Both systems have 6 SATA ports,4 RAM slots and decent low load power consumption.

However,if your applications support more threads well, then the 100W FM1 Athlon II X4 631 for around £50 and the 95W AM3 Phenom II X6 1045T for around £97 are also worth considering:

http://www.ebuyer.com/284509-amd-ath...-ad631xwngxbox

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

However,the X4 631 will need a graphics card.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Sounds like i need to go the AMD route then will my old Seasonic 400W PSU be fine?

i dont know if it has the correct mobo psu connections?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

An Intel Celeron G530(it is fantastic value for money) and a B75 motherboard which I linked to first would do the job,however as I said the cheaper AMD CPUs do suppport IOMMU and you can get more threads for the price too. OTH,Intel CPUs do tend to have better load power consumption,although the AMD CPUs are comparable at idle and in the case of the FM1 CPUs are in many cases better.

[aidanjt]

4xHotswap Bay Chassis £94.80: http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=42#cfi-a7879
Motherboard/CPU/6xSATA/2xGigE £166.80: http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=47#JNF99-525

That's more than enough metal for Linux unless you want to do on-the-fly transcoding or something.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

just on the fly encoding of zip files. im talking between 4-12gb zip files

[aidanjt]

just on the fly encoding of zip files. im talking between 4-12gb zip files

Should be fine. My Atom N270 netbook running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Beta 2 manages about 3-10MB/s, and that's single core 1.6GHz CPU, and swapping with a tragically awful PATA SSD to make room for the tmpfs I wrote to, incidentally the same device I was also reading from. So you wont expect GigE zipping, but should work well enough if you're not doing it all the time.

[DanceswithUnix]

Are you optimising for faster than P4 or lower power requirements for always one?

Llano would do both, but then it was never hard to be faster than a P4

This should have a bit of grunt, and although unlock to X4 is far from guaranteed the L3 cache usually goes OK (and this board can disable any given core on unlock).

Edit to add: Gah, that board doesn't have onboard graphics does it. Need uatx for that, cheaper but lose the better VRM. Dinner time so can't check for an alternative atm.

£45 Antec 300 case http://www.scan.co.uk/products/antec...new-version%29
£52 Am3+ motherboard, 140W cpu rating so it shouldn't go pop. http://www.ebuyer.com/269076-asus-m5...rd-m5a78l-usb3
£38 8GB of ram should help those dev tools http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-%...-9-9-9-24-150v
£66 Athlon X3 640, 3.4GHz http://www.ebuyer.com/270556-amd-ath...-adx460wfgmbox

[Bluecube]

What about a HP Microserver? They're £230 on Dabs and you get £100 cashback from HP. They're great servers and can run most Linuxes that don't have heavy graphical fluff.

[abaxas]

What about a HP Microserver? They're £230 on Dabs and you get £100 cashback from HP. They're great servers and can run most Linuxes that don't have heavy graphical fluff.

Great idea providing the OP doesnt want > 8 gigs of memory.

If 6 is enough, just stick in a 24 quid 4 gig stick and you ready to go.

After lots of testing I was surpized that a little 1.3 dual core provided about 60% the processing speed of the opteron 1352 (quad core) it replaced. New 1.5 will be even faster.

Only downside is the noise. It's quiet, but not quiet enough for me. It now lives in the garage.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

What about a HP Microserver? They're £230 on Dabs and you get £100 cashback from HP. They're great servers and can run most Linuxes that don't have heavy graphical fluff.

all built in though along with a tiny case that can only host one hdd? i need a beast that can house 4+ hdd's. i want to get rid of most of the hdd's scattered around all my pc's and dump them on this server

[Bluecube]

I've got the N40L and it's practically silent even when I've got my ear right next to it...

In terms of processing power, I run a Windows VM through FreeNAS on my server and there's never the slightest hitch.

josh - The microserver takes four HDDs. Don't know where you got the single drive spec from.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Great idea providing the OP doesnt want > 8 gigs of memory.

If 6 is enough, just stick in a 24 quid 4 gig stick and you ready to go.

After lots of testing I was surpized that a little 1.3 dual core provided about 60% the processing speed of the opteron 1352 (quad core) it replaced. New 1.5 will be even faster.

Only downside is the noise. It's quiet, but not quiet enough for me. It now lives in the garage.

mine needs to be dead quiet. my previous one was passive cooled with a mini sync ninja(can i use this again?) and only had one extract 80mm nocta fan

[shaithis]

I doubt you could squeeze the mini scythe into a microserver...

You cannot mix ECC and non-ECC RAM in them either and it comes with ECC....although the 2GB is pretty much disposable at todays RAM prices.