Poor man's Headless server suggestions

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

ebay item numbers:
350930527146
and
121276947939

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

the point of the littlefalls2 btw isnt size - it's heat & power consumption.
the dual-core atom is only about 7w

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

ebay item numbers:
350930527146
and
121276947939

May or may not ship to the US ebay says... doesn't count.

I know about power consumption but w/o an itx PSU It's not really a big deal IMHO.

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

it's your electricity bill.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

it's your electricity bill.

But IIRC even small ATX PSU's don't do low loads as well...

[mariushm]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

The Kabini processors (the AM1 board and the CPU I linked to) average at about 15-20w in full load, in idle they do even less.

Rat, why do you insist on using Debian on this server, after all you can find legal (or not so legal) Windows 2008 licenses out there and you can pretty much do everything you did on Debian on 2008 as well... and it's not more cpu/memory intensive. You can do remote desktop connection to it... whatever you want.

[goontron]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

The Kabini processors (the AM1 board and the CPU I linked to) average at about 15-20w in full load, in idle they do even less.

Rat, why do you insist on using Debian on this server, after all you can find legal (or not so legal) Windows 2008 licenses out there and you can pretty much do everything you did on Debian on 2008 as well... and it's not more cpu/memory intensive. You can do remote desktop connection to it... whatever you want.

Huh, working for M$ are we? Its called price. Plus you don't Need to reinstall if you change MOBO or CPU or etc. So he can use his current HDD and OS install.

At least that's what I could think of.

[mariushm]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Not working for MS, just laziness (and being realistic).

Students in US can get cheap licenses for Microsoft stuff and with modern hardware, everything just works.
No need to stress himself and hack around using old pci raid cards and again waste time trying to mix old hardware with new hardware and so on.

Debian was probably a good thing for a p3 with 512 MB but with todays hardware, there's virtually no difference between a configured Linux and a Windows OS.

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Laziness?

you obviously not used Linux recently.
it's 10 times more easy to setup than winshit.

and everything does not "just work" and i'm sure you know it.
stop fucking trolling for m$

[mariushm]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

I admit I don't use Linux much, I only did network administration for a university campus building (only a 100 computer network) for a couple of years while I was a student, and I used FreeBSD on servers.

I still like FreeBSD more than various Linux distros but I run a few of them from time in Virtualbox.

If he goes with a modern platform like socket AM1 and that Kabini processor, there's a small risk of some of the components not being 100% supported by whatever Linux distribution he's going to use, simply because the platform is TOO NEW. Maybe some temperature sensors, maybe the sata raid controller... on the other hand Windows drivers are readily available. That's why I said that "no need to stress himself and hack around".

As for the statement " Plus you don't Need to reinstall if you change MOBO or CPU or etc. So he can use his current HDD and OS install." ...

He's got two 320 GB in a raid, and supposedly one of those drives is dead, as the raid is broken. He said it with his own words. He's probably going to have to redo the raid anyway because I find it highly unlikely he's going to buy another 320 GB just to repair the raid. Or, as long as he's going to buy new hardware anyway, maybe it's time to forget about those ancient ide drives and just get a proper SATA 6 gbps drive, something that would at least be able to do those 1gbps network speeds. A 500 GB WD Blue drive is 50$. But that's up to him, not me. I gave him suggestions that will also accept the old raid card and those drives.

And again going back to that statement... yeah, how often you change mobo or cpu? Such a benefit, not having to reinstall. It only takes 30-40 minutes, you're not changing motherboards every month.


Look, I simply made a suggestion, no need for everyone to say I'm working for MS or trolling for MS. Talk about making Linux users respected by other people, if this is how you react to everyone not sharing your opinions...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

The PCI bandwidth is 133 MB/s.

Gigabit network is 125 MB/s

125 MB/s=Typical sequential physical platter speed for a single Seagate 7,200 RPM 500 GB HDD.

So, should be 250 MB/s with 2 Seagate 7200s in RAID 0.

240 MB/s is a typical ball park for the interface burst rate, for a single SATA 2 link.
(Some motherboard BIOSes will cap SATA 2 to PATA speeds in "IDE" mode)


--------
(While 125 MB/s or 120 MB/s would be typical for the interface burst rate on a PATA Maxtor) (Maxtor, before Seagate bought them, had the most PATA interface bandwidth, while many others were strangely only about 80 MB/s)

And possibly all others maxed out at UDMA 100, usually about 90 MB/s)

Just like with HDDs, I can see old-school-PCI creating a bottleneck for FTTH.....

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

mariushm, here's why I want to continue to use debian. Please bear with me, as it's not a simple answer (but a conclusive answer nevertheless).

First, I originally chose Debian for this server IMHO it was (and still is) the most stable yet light distro that does CLI well.

Also, via the origami package, it has inbuilt F@H (something I really cared about at the time).

Not to mention that at the time, it was the distro I knew best (and is 2nd best after arch and it's derivatives).

Hell, it's good enough for the ISS (they run a fork that is one stable release behind, just to be safe). Nice and secure, no AV or other crap addons required. And stable too.

What else... I can do the equivalent of remote desktop via SSH... and it works on any platform (they make an SSH client for everything).

And it's really light w/o a GUI... my main reason for a newer system (I was thinking P4 northwood, late socket A, or newer if I could afford it) is not for performance, it's for future part availability and compactness. And noise, if I get something with fans that aren't constant speed. But other than crappy F@H rates (which I could care less about), the thing does its job.

It's small too... leaving more space for network shared files

For that matter, other than "ease of use" (yeah right), I don't see a reason why a GUI is necessary. For anything custom and linux, knowing how to efrectivly utilize the CLI is a given and so far I've been able to do everything from a CLI w/o much trouble. It's a freaking server for crying out loud.

Debian is free too... no cracks or the like required.

Last, the debian install is running correctly... I'd rather not fix what isn't broke, hence moving the array or at least it's partitions and then making any adjustments (unlikely, as my custom configurations weren't server hardware specific).

I really see no point in using windows on this... there isn't any I can think of. Ok, maybe there is one remote reason, printer drivers, but with my linux laptops in the house, printers in use on the network are to be compatible anyway, so this isn't actually a limitation.

That's why I run and wish to keep running debian on my server.

---
On that note, here's a mini-rant:

First it was my Dell D630, then two and a half workstations, and now my fileserver. I hate how I ask legit questions and people piss on the concept rather than answering the question. I didn't ask "what's your favorite way to build a cheap NAS", I asked "What do you suggest for a cheap and (reasonably) reliable headless debian server" It's like people here either want a helicopter to cross the street (a bunch of brand new shit I can't afford) or want a kick scooter to ride on the interstate (USB attached cable/hub kludges). I built and and intend to keep something in the middle. Something simple and elegant (no external drives, all in one box) that won't break the bank and will perform the activities of the server (SAMBA File server, WINS server, SAMBA print server, optional F@H, all under debian to not fix what isn't broke). I thought this was a pretty clear question...

---
The raid may be degraded but it's still running on the single drive. That's the whole point of using RAID 1 in the first place... I actually may bemaking an offer on a SFF system to make the new server form that has a 320GB WD PATA drive in it... and failing that, I could make a new array and either directly (two controllers installed temporaily) or indirectly (via an external drive) copy the partitions. So no, I won't need to redo the array.

"30-40 minutes to install"... yeah, BS. Since the files get copied anyway (it's a file server after all), all I have to copy is another tiny partition or two (I'd have to check on how much is in it) and boom, there's the OS, already tweaked to fit in the network setup. Run Grub-install from a live disc and it's bootable and good to roll. Like I said, why fix what's not broke?

Like I said earlier (and been trying to imply), I don't want a new sytem... "newer" and "new" aren't the same. The "cheap" should have clarified that to a degree... but I guess "cheap" to one person is differen than "cheap" is to me. That being said, I don't see what wouldn't work... since it's a CLI, GPU/APU drivers are a moot point, and even new UEFI stuff has a legacy mode I could use until I added the packages needed to make grub work on UEFI (if I even dared to go there). If my network chip needed firmware, all I'd have to do is use an old USB 1.1 LAN adapter for a single bootup to install said firmware (or install it before the migration). USB (even 3.0) has never been an issue for new stuff in recent years IIRC. The only issues I've ever seen are for accelerated graphics drivers and wireless chips, neither of which apply here.
---

RJARRRPCGP, the current RAID only supports 2 drives (one per port), so it's not getting RAID 0 (would I do that for a file server? Seriously?)... I do raid 1 (duh). The 4 port version IIRC was PCI-X though if that means anything.

---

FYI, wherever I said "just a power and network cable", I meant to say "just a power, network, and USB (for the printer) cable"... forgot I had it serving a printer at the time I posted that.

[particleman]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

I love Debian I have used it since potato. Im not going to get into the linux vs windows thing but I think Debian makes a great server.

[cheapie]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

125 MB/s=Typical sequential physical platter speed for a single Seagate 7,200 RPM 500 GB HDD.

Congratulations... you just made me benchmark all of my drives (sequential read).

Western Digital WD2500JS-60MHB1 - 53.1 MB/s
Seagate ST3120213AS - 50.8 MB/s
Toshiba MQ01ABD050 - 89.9 MB/s
Samsung 840 120GB (SSD) - 467.2 MB/s

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Would something like this work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883250154
94 for a core2 and sff case? it's not a bad deal.

Then swap out the dvd drive with this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-242-_-Product

then find some 2.5" drives from thrift stores or dead laptops?

If you don't fancy 2.5 drives, you can get the 3.5 to 5.25 bays as a well. since that hp has 3.5 bay below the 5.25 bay.

[stj]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

prof, your missing the point.

the guy wants minimal cost upgrade.
more cpu power & a pci port and probably gigabit ethernet.

same case,psu,drives etc - preferably the same ram i imagine.

so what i posted is ideal other than it's location.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

prof, your missing the point.

the guy wants minimal cost upgrade.
more cpu power & a pci port and probably gigabit ethernet.

same case,psu,drives etc - preferably the same ram i imagine.

so what i posted is ideal other than it's location.

No, I think you're missing the point. I'm pretty sure he wanted a smaller more compact system with more processing power and pci or pci-e slots. An upgrade, that's not NEW/lateast, but modern/used enough to allow new options and phasing out old obsolete standards, under $100.

If he's looking for an upgrade that's under $50 he's just being unrealistic and is going to have to shop around for it.

He's not going to find itx case that fits his requirements that's under 50 either. I've play with itx builds they end up costing more than mirco build.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

prof, your missing the point.

the guy wants minimal cost upgrade.
more cpu power & a pci port and probably gigabit ethernet.

same case,psu,drives etc - preferably the same ram i imagine.

so what i posted is ideal other than it's location.

No, I think you're missing the point. I'm pretty sure he wanted a smaller more compact system with more processing power and pci or pci-e slots. An upgrade, that's not NEW/lateast, but modern/used enough to allow new options and phasing out old obsolete standards, under $100.

If he's looking for an upgrade that's under $50 he's just being unrealistic and is going to have to shop around for it.

He's not going to find itx case that fits his requirements that's under 50 either. I've play with itx builds they end up costing more than mirco build.

You're both right.

for the itx concept, I did want to use the same DDR2 I had... but, since itx appears to be out of budget, the concept has been scrapped.

That said, I also wish to use fullsize drives... no laptop drives, at least used ones. Reliablilty counts in this build.

I do know I'll have to shop around... and I plan to.

[ratdude747]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

I think I scored a chassis, at least for the mean time:



for the price of:



The insides are pretty basic:



And once again KZG's have bombed it:



(I've since recapped it with a Nichicon HN and some Samxon GD's.. all heatsinks cleaned and AS5'd too)

For an an intel board (rebadged D101GGC), I was kinda disappointed... ATI chipset, realtek everything else (only 10/100 LAN )... but it does have decent expansion slots. And like the nicer (although w/o PCI-e 16X) version I used to own, the front switch/LED lines are separate, which allows easy re-routing of the HDD LED to my RAID card.

The PSU is a POS IMHO... 300W Bestec (12E)... for 300W it's pretty gutless too. See the attached pics (and Everell, if you read this, the PSU is yours as I don't want it).

It runs... At idle it's actually pretty quiet (PWM cpu fan and also something on the rear fan too). I'm going to see if I can force-flash the intel version of the BIOS... I also dropped in a P4 Prescott 640 I had sitting (I'll probably leave it at 32 bit though, as I only have a gig of RAM and ATM it's not worth the trouble of converting).

Once sever usage is down for the night I'll move the stuff over. I like that it has some room to grow... if I scored a pair of SATA drives and a 3ware 9650 or the like (to use the 16X slot) and found a gigabit LAN for the 1x, it could work well... hell, I could almost go totally nutty and turn it into a router too with the extra old 10/100 (but I'm not quite that insane).

[c_hegge]

Re: Poor man's Headless server suggestions

Recap and keep the PSU. It's not that gutless at all. 300W well in spec would be no problem.