Going to get a small server

Im thinking about building a small server, using Windows 2003.

I was wondering how big a CPU, Hdd and how much ram, you need for a file/web/print server?

Both my servers have entry-level specs (Celeron 2.4, 256MB; Duron 2.5, 512MB) and run Windows Server 2003 without a hiccup.

But if you're making a server for "heavy" usage, use a Xeon processor.

If your server is going to be playing multiple roles, I'd suggest splurging on some RAM. I was using my desktop as a dedicated server with 1GB of RAM. It was running as a webserver and print server, as well as a file server for my internal network. Did the job quite well. Only running an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ as a proc, which is a decent little piece of engineering

My server is an old Athlon 900mhz with 640Mb RAM, a 40Gb system disk and a RAID 1 250Gb mirrored set.

Runs Windows 2003, Exchange, SQL Server, MySQL without big problems...

Next server will have a lot more memory, so I can start playing seriously with Virtual Server

That reminds me..
I have to get a Windows 2003 license aswell.
Where is the cheapest version, and is there any education license?

Chadk wrote:

That reminds me..
I have to get a Windows 2003 license aswell.
Where is the cheapest version, and is there any education license?

Check out the "Action Pack" license, it's dirt cheap.

W3bbo wrote:

Check out the "Action Pack" license, it's dirt cheap.

Isn't the Action Pack intended for internal use only? As a home user/independant developer, you couldn't deploy a web app publicly, could you?

My server is an Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz with 768MB RAM. It runs Server 2003, Sql Express, Exchange 2003, Active Directory, DNS, IIS (Community Server 2.0, Vault, & OnTime), and internal file sharing. It longs for more memory...if you're going to splurge on any single component, get lots of RAM....

jazzman007 wrote:

My server is an Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz with 768MB RAM. It runs Server 2003, Sql Express, Exchange 2003, Active Directory, DNS, IIS (Community Server 2.0, Vault, & OnTime), and internal file sharing. It longs for more memory...if you're going to splurge on any single component, get lots of RAM....

I can testify on that too. Thesedays processor speed counts for zilch (well, above 3.0Ghz) Graphics card and RAM count more than anything else.

jazzman007 wrote:

W3bbo wrote: Check out the "Action Pack" license, it's dirt cheap.

Isn't the Action Pack intended for internal use only? As a home user/independant developer, you couldn't deploy a web app publicly, could you?
....

Yes, you could.  Action pack licenses are full licenses for production use.  I cannot however tell you if your situation counts towards the requirements to get an Action Pack subscription.

Wow, reading all this makes me think; I have two servers that seem to be within what you are saying could run Windows Server 2003, and yet they are running Windows NT 4.0; I should probably upgrade them

Angus Higgins

i've run 2003 servers that were in the 5-600mhz range easily....

My sourcesafe server is actually an XP machine running on an athlon 600 with 512MB and 20GB HDD(daily backups to NAS).... It also plays the role of my demo server for SQL 2005 (using express).... if the queries don't run there the DB(or query) needs redesigning.....

a file/print server needs little cpu to really handle its workload.... a Gb network and decent ram should easily handle the work....

depending on the webserving you plan on doing you may need to beef it up...

if you are planning on building it yourself i would look at AMD's 754 line of Sempron 64 or A64 cpus.... they are cheap but will serve you well... lots of ram... 2GB min and a decent SATA2 drive (ideally a 150GB Raptor..or 2 in Raid) would be good.....

A cheap 754 based AMD system can give you all the performance you need and semprons even run cool so its easier to keep the fan volume down in the case.... if you just use off the shelf standard SATAII drives you should be able to build a nice little server for around $450-550 USD

For some reason, I have an urge to run an NT4 box. Weird I know

What do you use yours for, if I may enquire?

Why WS2K3?

Save yourself some money....

Grab a cheap PC, toss a Linux distro on it, Apache, MySQL, Etc... and be done with it...

Sorry but that is one thing that I do have to say about WS2K3 and running a web server...you have to have CPU/Memeory, ETC...whereas with Linux you can run it on a toaster...

Cybermagellan wrote:

Why WS2K3?

Save yourself some money....

Grab a cheap PC, toss a Linux distro on it, Apache, MySQL, Etc... and be done with it...

Sorry but that is one thing that I do have to say about WS2K3 and running a web server...you have to have CPU/Memeory, ETC...whereas with Linux you can run it on a toaster...

So true.

You can buy from Dell a server for $948 with Win2003 installed

W3bbo wrote:

jazzman007 wrote:My server is an Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz with 768MB RAM. It runs Server 2003, Sql Express, Exchange 2003, Active Directory, DNS, IIS (Community Server 2.0, Vault, & OnTime), and internal file sharing. It longs for more memory...if you're going to splurge on any single component, get lots of RAM....

I can testify on that too. Thesedays processor speed counts for zilch (well, above 3.0Ghz) Graphics card and RAM count more than anything else.

I don't think his server requires a very good graphics card...

My Exchange server.....

It has just been cruising along for near on 3 years now.

Reboot times suck, though it rarely happens except after a Microsoft Tuesday.

I've got an amd xP3000+ WinXP machine that runs a VM Win2k3 server.  I want to turn the whole machine into a win2k3 server, but I'm not sure what to use for virus/firewall.  Most of the stuff out there is for WinXP only...