Re: Server hardware advice.

[deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com>]

Steven Mainor wrote:

> I would say a server is any piece of software or hardware that serves data
> to other devices.
> 

Well strictly speaking two different things are referred as server:
        hardware
        software

In your case you are talking about buying hardware - correct? And if you
intend to use a PC, than the correct wording for this would be

A second hand PC that will be used as a home server.

> I have run an apache2/mariadb/php server from an old laptop with a
> headless LTS Linux for over two years without issue.
> 
> Surely you aren't saying only a rack mounted 64 core monstrosity with a TB
> of ram is qualified to be called a "server"
> 

On hardware level - yes. Any PC can be used as a server, but it is still not
a server from HW POV. There are many many technical details that make the
difference, like memory channels, caches etc.

> For my needs, I doubt anything more than a modern single board computer is
> necessary. At least as far as compute power is concerned.

Yes any modern PC would work. What was suggested that you take one with
enough CPU and RAM. I think today one could get 4-8 CPUs with 16-32GB of
RAM at a fair price.

Do not underestimate the disks. I had a terrible experience with PC style
drives. Take NAS style harddrives like the WD Red. You really want to use
RAID there and all other drives I have been using in the past had to be
replaced either because they failed or because the latency was
unacceptable. I had Seagate Baraccuda, WD Green and WD Blue. A fellow sys
admin told me they use WD Red and indeed the 2TB WD Red are very reliable,
but not the bigger once - amazing what one should know. So I replaced all
the drives over the years with WD Red 2TB. I use RAID1.

I build a backup server recently out of older Intel DG45FC board I bought
with CPU for ~100,- some years ago, gain with WD Red 2TB in RAID5, so that
there is 6TB now.

What I want to say is that not every fairly modern PC works, because you
want to attach at least two disks to build a RAID - the more SATA
connectors you have - the better.