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Re: [LUG] Small Business Web Server

 

On Mon, 29 Mar 2010, Gibbs wrote:

On 24/03/2010 12:48, Gibbs wrote:
I work for a small online business (only 2 of us) and we're looking to get a reasonably priced server. At the moment we have lots of projects (websites etc) running from my PC and it's getting very slow. We also have to keep the PC online 24/7 which is a nuissance.

Can anyone recommend a decent place to find servers? As it's a small business I think a small and cheap server should suffice initially but I really don't know where to start. In case anyone is wondering the server will be used locally so it's not for hosting purposes etc.

Any help or suggestions much appreciated!

Gibbs

Thanks to everyone that replied to this by the way.

I'm thinking a tower would be the easiest solution as I'm pretty limited in my knowledge of hardware. We would be hosting websites locally (and have a lot of web applications) so I was wondering what the "Mini PCs" (better name for this?) are like?

Towers are cheaper than rack-mount - and (more importantly!) easier to keep cool and quieter. Noise is a consideration if it's being hosted at home!

Would anyone recommend a SheevaPlug or something similar for a requirement like this? I know a couple have been mentioned but any more thrown in the bag would be ideal.

The big issue with these small systems is reliability - Sure, you can run a few sites on a Sheeva or MiniPC of some sort, but is it reliable enough? They're also not very fast - especially if you then load it up with apache/php/mysql - writing to internal flash might not be the fastest either - especially under a database load.

When building a new soho type server now, I'm looking at the fanless Atom boards combined with WDC "green" drives - the whole lot will run at under 45 watts and be as quiet as the PSU fan. No real need for a case fan if you can keep the drives spaced apart with plenty of air space round them.

If you can wait a few weeks, then if you (or anyone else!) is intersted, I'm going to have 3 older mini-tower servers for sale - under 50 quid inc vat each - varying specs mostly about AMD XP2000+ all with dual IDE drives (80GB to 250GB) and 1GB of RAM or more. These have been up in the co-lo I use for the past 4-5 years and I'm swapping them out for 3 new ones next week. The co-lo I use has filtered air so they'll be spotless inside. They'll be supplied wiped or with a basic Debian Lenny installed. They might be a bit noisy though as they all have case and processor fans.

Gordon

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