newpersn Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Random conversation in the office today... We all know we can build computers for everything. But what about custom made servers? Has anyone built a Server ?
3s-gtech Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Yes, but it depends on what you call a server. I got a late 90s trolley style case (which is epic) and loaded it with disks and a decent mobo, CPU etc. That was our main file server for years, till I built another and used DFS-R. Still have the case, long since virtualised the server. Never let me down in nearly seven years of use though.
synaesthesia Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Of course, they are after all just computers. Our last two servers were self builds. Both were intel mainboards (S5520BC iirc), one in an Intel server chassis, the other in an existing RM chassis. Nothing different than in a PC, just slightly larger scale, having to be a little more careful with cooling and factoring in PSU redundancy, drive cages, RAID setups, ILO/iDrac, multiple NICS & future expansion. There's a lot you can play with out there, supermicro do a great range of server boards as do a fair few other folks. You can often save a fair chunk of money with a DIY build *but* in the last couple of years I've noticed you can grab some great deals on off the shelf servers from the big boys like Dell and HP for silly money because they're end of lines or stock shifting. When you factor in warranties & same day swapout/support, that makes a sale a little easier. 1
caffrey Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 We had a major outage about 7 years ago and not a lot of contingency budget, so I self built. It's still our main DC, and the file storage and it's been solid. It was all off the shelf parts (none server) with a highpoint raid card, advantage of self build was I just doubled up on the hardware in case of failures. I also built an Exchange server and a SQL server but both of those have been retired - but not because of failure. I now just buy from ICTDirect especially for VM Hosts, I'll just upgrade that every few years, the next storage server will be self built I'd imagine (probably something pre built from X-CASE). I would like to know where you all get these "bargain" servers from tho 1
john Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I have in the past self-built but usually for Small firms / Charitys and found I couldn't get the same tin from HP for the money at the time. I found the lack of features you get in some of the big name kit like HPE and Dell can be a pain and generally you got more bang for buck and can pass the buck easier for issues as when its hard down and the world is screaming at you having to do component by component fault finding isn't something you always want so passing the blame to HPE or Dell is a nice thing
cpjitservices Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 Yep as above, Backup server for the company. It's loaded with Icydocks with 6TB drives. What a case! It's running a Core i5. 16GB Ram. Haven't seen another case like. Apparently, it came form an old bank mainframe in the 90's
Willott Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I've self built our virtual hosts - it seems easier to self build rack than tower servers (from a cost comparison point of view). Started pricing a tower xeon based server and dell came out cheaper (well, I'll be sticking our own SSDs in, but the core parts worked out cheaper with dell). Just can't find chassis/mobo for the right price! Rack wise, there's loads of supermicro barebones which fit, may have SAS onboard (RAID as well) and come in cheaper than the big makes.
Willott Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 Haven't seen another case like. Apparently, it came form an old bank mainframe in the 90's @cpjitservices you obviously haven't see the lian li pc-343b...
NB9457 Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I've built a few small office based servers, all chugging along fine with basic RAID config, NAS HDDs and consumer CPUs and Mobos. As for anything mission critical prior to VMs being as easy and cheap as they now are, I would have said bad idea for warranty and support purposes. Now though, given how easy clustering is and migrating VMs, I can see it working out better value for money and even provide better redundancy. It's actually got me thinking now!
cpjitservices Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 @cpjitservices you obviously haven't see the lian li pc-343b... Ive seen it but I don't like it, it doesn't have the same sort of presence that my big white lad has.
3s-gtech Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I've posted it before, but hail the trolley! Triple PSU slots, something like 20 HDD bays, an ODD bay and twin front 3.5" bays! And it's strong enough to ride down the corridors on.
Willott Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 Wow - is that an old RM thing, I'm sure there used to be one which looked like that in my secondary at the turn of the century...
3s-gtech Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I think most schools had them at some stage! The funny thing is, they're just an ATX case really, and will fit modern boards. A normal PSU will need extensions to work, though I have a special long lead one in there at present. It also weighs a ton. I also have an empty spare one, for fun.
cpjitservices Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I've posted it before, but hail the trolley! Triple PSU slots, something like 20 HDD bays, an ODD bay and twin front 3.5" bays! And it's strong enough to ride down the corridors on. Yep wish I had one of those!! That was from the RM SystemBase AX Range I think ? Or was that the with the green front ? either one is a great case. They dont make them like they used to.
dhicks Posted October 19, 2016 Posted October 19, 2016 Has anyone built a Server ? As others in this thread have pointed out, servers are just computers, so yes, I've built my own servers before. Of course, larger desktop cases tend to be made for the gamer market these days, so you tend to have to put up with glowing coloured LEDs everywhere: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/68446-server-chasis-homemade-nas.html#post610180 That machine was from around 6 years ago. I've tended to build our own server machines in the past as my design for server system has tended to focus on replaceable generic parts in multiple servers with a server / storage virtualisation layer on top. Up until now that layer has been XenServer and DRBD, however it looks like Windows Server 2016 should now be able to handle both virtual machine and storage virtulisation in one easy-to-manage package. That means that, hopefully, companies will now be offering hardware designed to be used in such a manner with Server 2016 - simply decide on the amount of compute / storage you want at a location and slot in the appropriate server. It looks like VeryPC are heading towards this approach with the "hyper-converged" servers they've been advertising recently. We need to start thinking about how / when we replace some of our server infrastructure, so it's something I've been getting some prices and so on for. I'm waiting for a couple of companies to get back to me before I decide whether it's cheaper to build our own servers again this time around.
Foresthippy Posted October 19, 2016 Posted October 19, 2016 Yep wish I had one of those!! That was from the RM SystemBase AX Range I think ? Or was that the with the green front ? either one is a great case. They dont make them like they used to. These were RX models. The AX came before. There was also the higher-end QX. After that their servers were mostly re-badged Intel boxes.
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