cheap server

[callumtuckey]

hi all
as most of you know i am starting to learn on servers and i was wondering were could i buy a cheap server from for £.100.00 if possible or would i be better to buy a cheap laptop and put server 2003 on

[ChrisC]

100???

That's a little toooooo cheap to be honest.

Chris

[mark]

Upgrade your ram and do it virtually

[callumtuckey]

Upgrade your ram and do it virtually

i have tried this approach and it never works i can never seem to get virtual server working

[bishopsgarthstockton]

I baught an old proliant server of ebay for just over £100 would have used virtual server but when i seen the offer i couldnt refuse. very happy with it

[tosca925]

We haver a couple of old servers we no longer use. We were thinking of sticking them on Ebay but if your interested....................?

I'll see if i can find the spec for you. I know we had 2003 running on them both. One was running Sophos but could no longer cope because of lack of memory. The other was just s small file server.

[SimpleSi]

I wouldn't spend money on a server at the moment - just get hold of any old machine and try it out on that one.

I've got a 800MHz machine with 128MB RAM running W2k3 - its fine for playing with.

I'd back the idea of more ram for your own machine as it will come in usefull for other things apart from server emulation.

I'm sure people here could help out with the Virtual Server install issues
(I use VMServer myself unfortunately)

regards
Simon

[callumtuckey]

I'm sure people here could help out with the Virtual Server install issues
(I use VMServer myself unfortunately)

ok if you want to help me pm for i can get started please

[sidewinder]

Agree that you dont need a server - any old crap PC will do
Have even had test machines running on 400mhz Celerons in the past, as long as you have at least 256MB RAM it will run fine

[acrobson]

I agree with the VM ware option, as even if you could get a serving machine for £100, you then have the server 2003 license cost on top, and they ain't cheap. At least the legal version, anyway!

[mattx]

But a server looks better than a PC
Loads of good second hand ones on E-bay - touch wood I have never had any problems with the IBM servers I have bought to fill our rack with...

[Joedetic]

I bought a VA Linux 2U rackmount server from e-bay recently. £80 including post and packing (of which there was a lot!)

It's got dual P3 1GHz processors, 512Mb RAM and a hotplug raid (with only one 9.1gig disk in it) I've put a 120gig IDE drive in it and it is awesome. If not a little loud. It comes with 2NICs in it aswell and has serial for the UPS etc.

There are still some on there IIRC. Look for Snowdon Computers (or something liek that)

[callumtuckey]

thanks
all

[kerrymoralee9280]

Buy VMWare Workstation (about £50 I think) and install 2003 to that. I've got a team running that is the same setup as the school network, so if I need to make changes I do it there first to try and eliminate anything that could go wrong.

I have 3 servers running at one time on VMWare - They only have 256mb RAM each but run fine. I also sometimes need a XP machine with 128mb RAM but like I said, they work fine and my machine only has 1.5Gb RAM.

[webman]

callum: If you go down the VM route - you can get VMWare Server for free (you still need to register to get the key, but you don't have to pay) and you can install any operting system you like on that.