Building a few server rooms/pc's

[mckeder]

Hello everyone. I am building roughly 5 new pc's to host gaming servers in a t1 maybe even a t3 environment. The hardware I have selected so far is pretty complex and very expensive. costing me about 2700-4500 per pc. I am looking for a cheaper/alternative way of building the pc's for a gaming server without spending that much money.

 

Any suggestions?

[localzuk]

What sort of gaming? How many players?

[mckeder]

Its roughly going to depend. I'm starting my own business for gamers. The server pc's will host Counterstrike and possibly other war type games (not sure yet if i am going to do any others) and the pc's are going to run about 25 different games ranging from World of Warcraft and Guildwars to simple games like poker and pitfall

[localzuk]

This is probably the wrong forum to ask this then really, but here's my advise:

 

1. Don't scrimp on your initial outlay, if your business takes off, it will cost you more to improve things than having a sustainable system in the first place.

2. Use well known brands of server - such as Dell or HP. This will allow you to have a good warranty, so things can be fixed in very quick time.

 

Now, onto specs...

 

Counterstrike is quite intensive. If you wish to host 32 slots on a box, you are looking at 2GB Ram, dual processors, SAS 10,000 RPM disks (or 15k disks if you can afford em). I would recommend something like this: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06b/521-525-358263-358263-12083449-12569852-78128729.html with SAS disks.

 

Each game you wish to host will have its own requirements. Poker and things like that will probably be happy on a shared server, whereas Counterstrike and its ilk will need dedicated boxes.

[mckeder]

I dont mind spending the money on servers. Just trying to minimalize my cost as much as possible. I was looking at building most of the stuff myself just because its cheaper by about 1k dollars but the problem I run into is the warranty. Now dont get me wrong, warranties are nice, but I cant afford to have that 2 week downtime so they can work on the pc.

 

Just trying to get an idea of what it would cost me to build the entire thing myself. Not sure if I want to go rack mount 1u or 2u yet.

[ChrisH]

If you buy a branded server you will have an onsite warranty depending on your level of cover this might only be half a day to nextday service.

[GrumbleDook]

A number of local gaming zones I've been to have 4 hour response and a spare box in the back cupboard just in case. It seems to be a common practice.

[mckeder]

That is true. Never thought of that. Can anyone recommend a nice server that isn't dell? just not a big fan of dells

[FN-GM]

HP are pretty good

[Guest Guest]

Im not a fan of dell workstations, but you really cant knock their servers bith on design/quality and price.

[Joedetic]

Dell servers are NOTHING like Dell desktops and laptops...just so you know They are so much better.

 

If you can afford the cost, IBM are always good build quality, at least the ones i've had contact with in the past were. Most things produced by IBM are rugged and reliable but it comes at a greater cost than a dell obviously.

[localzuk]

Where I last worked, they spent about £2m on dell stuff a year, there servers were rock solid and the warranty is superb. That said, HP are just as good.

 

I would say go with HP - you can have 4 hour response time on their warranties.

[CyberNerd]

You'll need somewhere to put this new server, I'd suggest somewhere secure like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/Titan-Missile-Base-Central-Washington_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ1607QQihZ009QQitemZ190132455924QQrdZ1

 

[mckeder]

wow. I would love to have that base but just cant afford the 1.5 mil price tag on it. roflmao! but thanks for everyones response. I am checking into dell and ibm servers right now. I will let you all know which ones I choose.

 

Thanks,

Derek

[tech_guy]

Perhaps we could all club together (1500000 / 4177 = 359 each) and use it to take over the world - well schools in the uk at least ;-)

[mckeder]

Well, After a long hard look, I decided it would be best to go ahead and spend about 8k on a server with all the features I wanted. Here it is

 

 

http://tinyurl.com/18r

[tech_guy]

Ur url goes nowhere?

[localzuk]

Is that 8k dollars?

[mckeder]

yes. 8k us dollars. go figure the url didn't work. I will see if I can repost it. There are a few different ones I am looking into to see if they will be worth it or not but I went with an Intel Quad Core processor with 8gb ram and raid 5 with 2 300g hdd. I think that should be good.

[localzuk]

What OS will you be running on that? Also, RAID 5 only works with 3 or more drives, not 2.

[mckeder]

I think it had a 3rd drive of 146gb not really sure. I will re-look. I will probably use either Fedora 7 (not sure how well its going to work as a game server) or Windows server 2003. Depends on which will work better

[localzuk]

If you go for W2k3, you would need the enterprise edition in order to run that amount of RAM - the standard edition has a limit of 4GB. Enterprise edition has a limit of 32GB.

 

Also, what speed are those disks? Generally, high capacity disks have lower speed and speed is what is important for gaming, not space...

[mckeder]

yeah, I was looking at that. the 300gb are 7200 speed and the 146 is 10,000. I might downgrade to the 146g at 10,000 speed. I tried to find a 15,000 speed but couldn't find one.

 

I think the w2k3 enterprise edition is the one it came with or I could sub out the fedora 7

[localzuk]

What make is it that you are looking at?

[mckeder]

wd and seagate right now. i think i might just build my own. looking at the prices it is SOOO much cheaper. I am saving over 5g to build it myself. I can just use that extra money to buy a second PC to keep as a backup