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Replacing a Personal Rack-Mounted Server?
Starky writes "Many moons ago, I cobbled together a 1U rack mount from parts which has since been diligently serving up my homepage and web sites for family and friends. It's a truly "Mom and Pop Shop" setup, running on a rack secluded in a closet at home over a DSL line. At the time, I was able to piggyback my order on a large order placed by a company for which I was working, allowing me to get a substantial discount.
Now, the time has come to consider a replacement. However, I no longer work at a company that orders chassis and chips by the dozen. I would like to get a rack-mountable chassis, but don't know where to go as a lowly individual consumer looking for a box with minimal specifications (1 processor, dual drives, and 1G RAM is about all I need) at a reasonable price.
Any recommendation from Slashdotters who maintain their own rigs?"
Dead on. If you really need a rackmount server, dell has low prices on single units that you can NOT beat. But the question remains, if you only need one why the heck are you getting a rackmount? Taking a serious look at your logic behind this decision is in order. Here is a start: they DO make server-class computers without 19" rack ears on them.
I would consider an AMD Geode chip. It likely faster than you need, and you can get a motherboard/cpu/heatsink combo for around $100. They usually take DDR1 memory and 1GB DDR1 is very inexpensive. Video is built in, like most proper server boards. The power savings will probably be substantial over a "server motherboard" type computer also.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Dude, you must be new here. 90+% of Ask Slashdot questions can be answered in some form by Google, people ask questions here to get a particular informed answer to the question from a group of fellow geeks.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
And almost all of them are worthless unless you already know exactly what you want. Hardware changes so fast that sometimes it's hard to know what the good gear is this month.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Seriously, I had the exact same concerns recently, however I refuse to listen to the insane noise usually coming from an 1U rack..
I bought a cheap mac mini (intel core solo) on ebay, gutted it, replaced the CPU, added 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB drive.. I then put an external 250 GB drive on top of it. Alternatively buy a brand new Mac mini with the specs you need.
There you go - $600 or so and you have a totally silent "home server".
First, if you're looking for inexpensive rack-mounted servers, check geeks.com which sells several machines of recent vintage.
However, you might consider this idea. I decided to be more flexible for my own home after observing a small dotcom that acquired several smaller dotcoms, some of which used towers and others that used rack mounted machines.
I opted to install a two-post rack, the kind some people call "relay racks," and I installed shelves on them. The shelves allow me to install whatever computer I want, whether rack-mounted or tower configuration. They also allow me to use non-rack-mount communications gear like routers and modems. I also have punch-down blocks at the top for cabling and power hanging off the side. Naturally your four-post 19-inch rack would have similar if not somewhat less expensive shelving available for it.
Back to my setup, the all-aluminum two-post rack came from American Power Conversion and only cost me $150.
The shelves vary from $35 to $70 each. The shelves holding the smaller gear are cantilevered and vented. The rest are center-mounted.
For your rack you can use your old rack-mounted computer as a shelf for the other components.
There shouldn't be a reason to restrict your options to just rack-mounted computers. The more flexible and less expensive tower form factors are definitely going to satisfy you more.
Kriston