Poor man's Headless server suggestions

[ratdude747]

I'm thinking of upgrading my ghetto headless server... here's what I have:

-Dell Dimension 4100 case (old ATX)
-enlight 230W PSU
-Intel VC820 Mobo
-Slot 1 PIII Coppermine 800MHZ
-512mb RAMBUS
-Ati RAGE XL server GPU
-3ware 7006 2 port ATA RAID card (RAID 1)
-2x 320gb ATA WD Caviar blue (one is probably dead, it's trying to rebuild and failing)
-USB 2.0 card (for printer)
-3com 10/100 card
-52x CD-ROM

It runs debian wheezy w/o a GUI... I maintain it over SSL. It does the following:

-File server (Samba NAS)
-Print server (also through samba)
-WINS server (samba again)
-F@H (slow as balls though, my only F@H client still in service)


The reasons I want to upgrade are:

-Bulky. this midtower case is compact for a midtower but it's overkill... A smaller system would make more sense.
-No gigabit. I don't have gigabit yet but I may down the road... yes, I still use 10/100... "you in the back, quit snickering!" While I do have a gigabit PCI card, it (like all I've seen) uses PCI-X... which tells me I'll have bandwidth issues over plain PCI (why else would they go to the effort of making a PCI-X card for a single port)
-No DVD drive. this is an easy fix, but my supply of IDE DVD drives is dwindling... and while a CD is fine for most things, I use CD-R's so seldomly that I don't really buy them any more
-No USB booting. this would fix ^ but being a PIII with USB 1.1, no shit it doesn't USB boot
-Noisy. even with the rear exhaust fan run on 7V (between the 12V and 5V rails)
- Old. Like 14+ years old. While parts can be found, since when I eventually move out after getting my degree, my parents will still be using it. I want something that will be relatively maintenance free for the long term.

I also don't have a lot of spare change to work with...

I do plan to, if possible, move over the HDDs and controller, so I don't need to reinstall debian (lots of config to bitch about) and move files. Even if it was some temporary setup so I could do a partition to partition copy with a gparted live disc...

I was thinking of either using an ITX board I have (Intel D210GLY) or one of my old AGP-less micro P4 ATX junkers... but none have gigabit LAN... and my only ones that do also have AGP and hotter running p4's...

None of the thrift stores around here ever have anything either... no complete systems (although one had a DFI 939 board for $35, not a score IMHO).

If I thought I could get a new enough ITX board to have gigabit and a case/PSU for cheap, I'd do that (I have a 1GB PC6400u DDR2 module for the other I could reuse)... but last I checked ITX cases weren't cheap and finding them used was impossible (I may check ebay again).

By cheap, I mean as cheap as possible... this is by no means a "required" thing (other than replacing the bad HDD if it is bad).

So, anybody have some hardware suggestions, general or specific?

[particleman]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

I bet you could use a raspberry pi. I use one with apache and smokeping to monitor servers,switches and routers. If you are not looking for blazing fast super server I bet it would work. Low power no heat and the size of a deck of cards.

[shovenose]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Okay, in all seriousness, ditch the F@H, and get a router with a USB port, attach an external HDD.

You'll make back the money in power at the end of the year.

There's also something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Computin.../dp/B0093LINVK

[Compgeke]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

A tad pricey for most low use systems but I have an Optiplex 780 SFF and it's awesome. You can get some dual and quad gigabit low profile ethernet cards and add 8 more ports to one if needed. With a SATA power splitter you can add a 2nd HDD in the bay below the DVD drive which is helpful.

An example without an HDD: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141302941644

Looking at your local Craigslist there sure isn't much, possibly http://louisville.craigslist.org/sys/4469976022.html could be interesting but $200 is probably more than most people have - it's more than I have for sure.

I would keep on the lookout for a SFF or USFF Core 2-era Dell. I've never seen an Optiplex 780 with bad caps before, not that it would be the end of the world for most people here.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

My router does have a USB port and openWRT on top of that... but that isn't a fix:

-No RAID... so if the HDD dies, so does some important files (which are backed up elsewhere but it would be a pain never the less. Ok, use a hub and two drives... but now this is getting messy (see below) and adds yet another layer of crap the router has to do.
-No printer server... this thing also attaches a printer to the network (I do have some standalone print servers but I don't want to use them for this case)
-limited hardware... I'd have to see but making open WRT run cups AND samba (all hooked via a USB hub?) may be too much... not to mention that's putting all of my eggs in one basket (a server issue causes the whole network to die, not good!)
-too "conventional"... I kinda like using things in ways not intended... it's more of a preference.
-not "clean"... having a crap load of USB stuff hanging out the back is not my bag. I'd like to, ideally, have a "box" with a LAN connection and a power cord (and USB and the like for setup and maintenance.
-not maintainable... I like having at least my RAM separate in case of a failure...

My concern with raspberry pi is the same as above in many ways... other than the eggs in the basket, the same issues exist. I also am not familiar with the Pi (I know what they are and some basic hardware specs) but I've never used one... at the very least, not being x86, I'd have to copy and re-tweak some of my custom files in the new install.

As for the amazon link, too pricey and still has the external HDD issue.

F@H could go bye bye... but that's a moot point here.

Another way to look at this is as an NAS on steroids...

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

A tad pricey for most low use systems but I have an Optiplex 780 SFF and it's awesome. You can get some dual and quad gigabit low profile ethernet cards and add 8 more ports to one if needed. With a SATA power splitter you can add a 2nd HDD in the bay below the DVD drive which is helpful.

An example without an HDD: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141302941644

Looking at your local Craigslist there sure isn't much, possibly http://louisville.craigslist.org/sys/4469976022.html could be interesting but $200 is probably more than most people have - it's more than I have for sure.

I would keep on the lookout for a SFF or USFF Core 2-era Dell. I've never seen an Optiplex 780 with bad caps before, not that it would be the end of the world for most people here.

keep in mind it has to hold 2 HDDs since as a backup server, I run RAID 1 (or 1+0/0+1 if I went to a 4 HDD system). It doesn't need to be that new either... but I like how you think.

[goontron]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

keep in mind it has to hold 2 HDDs since as a backup server, I run RAID 1 (or 1+0/0+1 if I went to a 4 HDD system). It doesn't need to be that new either... but I like how you think.

do you want to know what my server is? its a PS3 with linux installed to the HDD and 2 2tb drives over USB in RAID 1 with a PHP compiler, a mySQL database, a SAMBA server, an Apache install, an FTP server, a torrent client, and a print server through CUPS+SAMBA.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

do you want to know what my server is? its a PS3 with linux installed to the HDD and 2 2tb drives over USB in RAID 1 with a PHP compiler, a mySQL database, a SAMBA server, an Apache install, an FTP server, a torrent client, and a print server through CUPS+SAMBA.

Yeah, and I don't like external HDD's in a server (as already stated). I also don't have a PS3.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Stupid question:

the HDD in question keeps not showing up after removal during rescans (all via tw-cli)... A bad cable would/could cause this, right?

[mariushm]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

$44 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128699
(34$ after 10$ rebate card)
GIGABYTE GA-F2A55M-S1 FM2+ AMD A55 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
raid 0/1/jbod , 64gb ddr3, gigabit lan, 4 sata 3gbps

$43 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113367
AMD A4-4000 Richland 3.2GHz Socket FM2 65W Desktop Processor AD4000OKHLBOX

35$ : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231644
G.SKILL NS Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C11S-4GNS
but you can get 1gb ddr3 for 10$ from ebay or somewhere else.

If you don't care that much about raid

34$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157489
40$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113367

If you don't want new, go on eBay and get some AM/AM3 board with ddr2 and an old 10-15$ Sempron

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

^noted, I'll look around for something used and prebuilt locally first... but the latter would work. I don't need RAID as I already have it in an external card (or if I upgraded the array, I'd get a newer hw raid card to go with it). For what I'm doing, hell, a later socket A system would even work... Gigabit LAN (one port) is the limiting factor age wise...

[mariushm]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

The later version only has PCI Express slots. I think your your raid card is pci / pci-x, and honestly the onboard raid (if the board has it, am1 chipset doesn't seem to have raid) is much faster than the raid that card did.

This Biostar model:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138399

has an extra PCI slot, also has HDMI output, but on the downside (if you can call it) has some regular OST caps in the non critical places (5v caps for usb and other less intensive stuff). I wouldn't be bothered by it.

The PCI bandwidth is 133 MB/s.

Gigabit network is 125 MB/s, so pci gigabit network cards are possible and work just fine, slot bandwidth is not an issue, pretty much polling (interrupts) and cpu usage is. pci express uses less cpu for big transfers.

If you connect the hard drives to that raid card, you're choking them to ~ 120 MB/s, if the card is even capable of that throughput. For RAID1 and with old drives, you're going to be fine... but it's still somewhat pointless.

In contrast, if you get the fm2 board and leave the chipset to do its job you have 3 gbps of bandwidth with each drive.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

My card is PCI (not PCI-X) and had 2 IDE ports. My main reason for wanting to keep the array (even temporarily) is for not needing to reinstall debian (I've customized some of the config files and don't want to redo everything unless I have to) and to minimize/eliminate data loss during the rollout. What I'd do is run the array on the new hardware, and once I had the new drives, run both arrays and use a gparted live disc to move it partition by partition. If possible, I'd then convert it to using x64 (not sure if this is possible w/o a reinstall).

I also doubt the onboard raid has any linux-friendly CLI interface (like tw-cli for my 3ware cards)... once setup, I do all my package updating and status checking over SSH, and this includes the RAID status. This will literally be a box with a power cord and LAN cable run to it, and once setup, nothing more. I probably won't be hotswapping drives or anything too crazy... but even an equivalent of 3ware-status (prints the current status of all 3 ware controllers and their RAID units/drives) would do. Just so I can make sure my HDDs are running properly w/o having to jimmy in a LCD and keyboard (doing that to actually swap and configure a replacement drive is a little more acceptable).

edit- did some research, and it's a wash... there is some universal dmraid utility for fakeraid maintinace... but I'm also reading the lastest GRUB2 versions don't play well with such arrays.

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

what about an intel "littlefalls2" D945GCLF2 ?
there are loads on ebay real cheap.
i got one for a repair and they are very nice spec.

[goontron]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Damit! My PServer3 just Ylod' ed.

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

did you replace the compound UNDER the cpu cover?
because that's a common probem a lot of people dont know about.

[goontron]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

did you replace the compound UNDER the cpu cover?
because that's a common probem a lot of people dont know about.

No, it was just soft-modded. Will have to try that. Thanks!

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

what about an intel "littlefalls2" D945GCLF2 ?
there are loads on ebay real cheap.
i got one for a repair and they are very nice spec.

If they weren't $80 a pop you'd be right. Not to mention the cost of a proper case...

I may see if the successor to my current itx has gigabit... maybe...

edit- nope, it didn't either.

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

80?
in the u.k. they where going for under £30 (about $45)

and it fits in an atx case and has atx psu coonectors.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

80?
in the u.k. they where going for under £30 (about $45)

and it fits in an atx case and has atx psu coonectors.

But that makes getting an ITX board pointless...

Yes, $80. Look it on US Ebay and see for yourself... if you find a cheaper one, please, do tell.

---

I see that pretty much all itx cases aren't made for 3.5" Hdds... but for 1 or 2 2.5" drives... if 2.5" drives weren't so unrelaible, I could almost fakeraid a pair of those on an ITX board... but men.