Building a server, looking for advice/opinios.

kogo50

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Jul 14, 2009
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Hello,

I plan on building a server to use at home. I have some questions and I'm looking for advice. First I want to tell you what the server is going to be used for.

The main types of servers I want it to be are a file server, a media server, and a bit torrent server. I will most likey want a build server mainly to build linux kernels, compile code and test code. Last thing I know I want to use it for is running virtual machines for testing different Operating Systems.

I'm not entirely sure what else I want it to do. Possible mail server. A print server. Possible irc and chat server.

My plan from a software point of view is to run each server type in a separte virtual machine. This is what we do for the servers in the school district where I work as an IT. They used to use a 1u or 2u server for every server they needed. Now we use 2 physical servers to run the 8 virtual servers and 1 other physcial server with copies of the virtual servers for a backup incase of a issue with the other 2. All data is store in 2 storage arrays, again one backs up the other plus we use an off site back solution. Any advice or options on this?

Also the host OS will be Linux and so will the virtual servers. Not sure what distro yet.

As for hardware I'm not really sure. I've done desktops before but never a server. Everything on my network is 1Gib/s so it needs that. I have some questions/concerns.

Some questions are:
1. Should I use server hardware or desktop hardware? I would like it to be as cheap as possible but I don't have a budget right now.
2. Should I use a tower case or should I buy a rack and a rack server case? I have the space for a rack but is it worthit?
3. Is raid worth it or should I use a off site backup solution? I want my data safe but 99% I can get back if I lost it.
4. Should I run all of the servers on the same physical machine? Like maybe having the build server on seprate hardware for performance reasons?
5. Anyone have any builds?
 
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I would still say to group as many services onto as few machines (both physical and virtual) as possible. It's madness you would create a separate server for each service in such a small network, it just loads the processor up much more than needed because of having to deal with so many operating systems.

At most I'd go for a host, maybe a couple of virtual servers for all the services and a last virtual server for development.

My own home server runs as much as possible on the host and the virtual machines are only for what the host cannot run.

pauls3743

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I'm no IT pro, just a little knowledgeable.

Servers, as it's for a home and the load will be light I would run as much on the parent system as possible i.e. file server, media server, mail server, print server. IRC, chat and bit torrent are probably going to land on a virtual server. This will keep is relatively light for the processor as it doesn't have so many operating systems to run.

Rack servers are loud, go with a tower case.
Insides, low-mid range i5 with 16-32GB ram should be more than enough, but that's not a guarantee. I would definitely run it on an SSD.

Raid is good for keeping your system running during some hardware failure and it helps with increasing performance but nothing beats external backup for data security when your system completely fails. However, how that's done in Linux I don't know.

I can't really comment on my own server as beyond using a tower case and running on SSDs, everything else is different in terms of Operating systems, hardware and general use.
 

mastrom101

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Jun 12, 2010
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You probably have more knowledge then most of us on the forums considering your IT background (especially with servers).

My advice would be to stick with a desktop case and motherboard. You could use a server CPU (Xeon) or go with a less powerful CPU.

I'm not familiar with Linux so I can't offer much help.

 

kogo50

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Ok so I made up my mind about a few things. Most likey going to do a type 1 hypervisior so xen server or vmware esxi. Not sure how I'm going to spilt the servers up yet. I thinking of putting each server in its own virtual machine. I plan on using either arch linux, debian, or opensues for the guest operating systems without GUIs and as little software as possible. Each guest should only have to have between 2GB and 5 GB of storage and 1GB or less of RAM. As for hardware I going to go with desktop hardware. I read some good things about the AMD FX series for virtualization. Might go that route. Going to use a ssd for the hypervisior and the virtual machines. Probably a 120GB. Not going with raid unless I have extra money to spend. Just going to buy 2 2TB drives for data. Can always upgrade later. Any one have any opinions? Would like some input before I spend the money if possible.
 
My VM servers are based on quality desktop hardware and they are stable (obviously not overclocked). I don't know much about Xen server, but hardware support by ESXi is limited, even more so when using an AMD solution. For my newest server I chose an Intel motherboard compatible with ESXi and Hyper-V as I hadn't yet decided on the hypervisor to use.
 

pauls3743

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I would still say to group as many services onto as few machines (both physical and virtual) as possible. It's madness you would create a separate server for each service in such a small network, it just loads the processor up much more than needed because of having to deal with so many operating systems.

At most I'd go for a host, maybe a couple of virtual servers for all the services and a last virtual server for development.

My own home server runs as much as possible on the host and the virtual machines are only for what the host cannot run.
 
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