Home-Office Server sugestions

[Dominofx]

Since I am a new member I might of missed information you already have published or posted so up front I appoligize for that. My background has been in business application development but with all the technology changes I feel out of date on the new hardware technology. I am in the process of creating a new startup company with another person and want to build our business server that will provide; printing, internet access, hosting our business web, etc. My questions are below, let me know if I need to provide more information.

1) What processor and mother board to use? suggestions?
2) Resources on small business server design / items needed?
3) quick links to best places to buy hardware / software?

Thanks for your assistenance

Jim

[EzyStvy]

Which country do you live in

You'll need to upgrade to a commercial acct with your ISP in order to run a Web Server.

[Dominofx]

I am in the USA, just updated the information sorry about that... I am thinking maybe the web hosting my own page might be better through a hosting provider as I see how cheap the cost are now. This way I would have just a small server for printing and file storage solutions.

[glc]

I would highly recommend that avenue. The time you will need to spend attending to security issues just isn't worth it. Use a commercial host for your domain website and email, $5 a month buys a lot these days.

How many workstations do you need to connect to your fileserver? You won't need a print server - just buy printers that have builtin print servers and connect them directly to your router/switch. Will you need remote access? Are you comfortable building a machine yourself?

[Dominofx]

Yes I am comfortable building myself I have done a few pc's in the past. I will have 5 work stations. I would like remote access as well

[glc]

With only 5 workstations, you don't have to use a server OS or a domain structure. You can simply use a workgroup. I'd recommend XP 64.

What's important in a server is plenty of ram, and fast disk I/O. You don't need a high end CPU.

For a small server, I like the following components -

Motherboard: Asus P5BV-C

Processor: E8400

Ram: Kingston 2x2gb DDR2-800 ECC

Now, for a disk system. I would recommend a small drive for the OS on the motherboard controller, and a 4 drive RAID 5 array for your data.

OS drive: WD 80gb Caviar Blue (You could RAID 1 a pair of them for extra data security, the motherboard controller supports RAID 1)

RAID controller: Adaptec 5405 kit

RAID drives (x4): Depends how much storage you need. These will give you about 1.35TB.

WD 500gb RE3 (Note - if you want bigger drives, that will put you over the 2 TB MBR limit for an array, you will have to use GPT formatting, which XP 64 supports, I'd use bigger RE3's)

Case is up to you, and you don't need a huge PSU. You just need a case that can hold that many hard drives. The Coolermaster RC310 is an excellent value, and has 6 internal hard drive bays. I'm not a fan of windowed cases, but I do like the side mount hard drives. The Corsair 650TX power supply is way more than what you need, but it has eight SATA power connectors and is a superb quality unit at a very nice price.

Add any old SATA DVD burner to install the OS and load software. For remote access, I recommend you look at www.logmein.com - this avoids any security issues from using remote desktop, no static IP required, and no firewall holes.

EDIT: You will not need a keyboard, mouse, or monitor - you can use a KVM switch with one of your workstations. You will need a good line-interactive UPS, I recommend APC and Tripplite.

[Dominofx]

Thanks for taking the time to gather all this information, all looks good to me. I will take the advice and go with bigger RE3's now .. Jim