Re: [LUG] choosing hardware

On 7 August 2011 22:36, Gordon Henderson <gordon+dcglug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 7 Aug 2011, Daniel Robinson wrote:

Hello Lug.

This is my first post here on the user list. I'd like to quickly thank zleap
and Rhia for making me feel welcome in the IRC chat.
The purpose of this topic is advice on choosing hardware for a new build.

I will want to use the computer as a web server. I won't want keyboard mouse
or monitor and I would like it to be as cheep as possible. I will want to
run multiple websites eventually.
I have a brand new 500W PSU that i can use (Coolermaster) but everything
else will need to be bought.
The websites will all be Drupal 6, so i can only assume that plenty of CPU
and RAM will be required.

Are you sending the server off to a data centre, or is it for your own (or work) type of use?

If the former, then pick the hardware very carefully - and it won't be that cheap either - you really do want stuff well supported, and reliable...

If the latter... Well, just about anything really. Drupal isn't that bad - I know there's a few running on one of my servers, but they're not fantastically busy (that I can see - they're not my sites, just sites for my clients), however you might as well get 4GB of RAM these days. I like ASUS motherboards and an intel pentium or core-2 is fine (dual core).

If running this at home or in an office where you pay electricity, then power usage might be a consideration - and that might rule out the higher performance processors.

However, cheap as possible and high performance don't really go hand in hand - but you can put something together for about Â300 if you try hard enough. Look for a motherboard with on-board ethernet and graphics too - graphics performance won't be fantastic, but who cares when it's a server when you're not actually running graphics - and it's one less card to buy.

Gordon
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