Economically stimulated
May. 18th, 2008 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greatbearJeff and I took advantage of the rainy weather and being unable to do much yard/outdoor work and did some serious Costco shopping, a fruitless stop at Best Buy, a couple things from Giant, two PC fans and a drive enclosure from Radio Shack and a haul of plants from Lowes. Among the haul was a new 24" display for the studio PC. I'm loving it. My stimulus check as well as most if not all of my tax refund has been vaporized between this and other things in the last week.
Last night I assembled my new server to replace the 10 year old beast that's been living in the basement and working nonstop. The new one is awaiting an OS install, once that is done, I am hoping the new box is at least half as reliable as the old one.
I built the new box with an eye on efficiency, expandability and flexibility. I also wanted to make use of some parts I had laying around. This is what finally came together.
Motherboard: Asus M2N32 WS Pro. Not actually a server mobo per se, but one geared towards workstation duty. An AMD AM2+ mobo, with lots of connectivity built in. While I wont be running SLI video in it, the capability is there. Two PCI-E X16 slots, two PCI-E X1 slots, a pair of 133MHz PCI-X slots, and a lone PCI slot. It has Firewire, USB, dual Gigabit LAN ports, a whopping 10 SATA ports, and many other goodies.
CPU: An AMD Athlon X2 4600. I pulled this from my digital audio workstation when I upgraded to an X2-6000. I figure it will do nicely as a simple server chip, plus it's fairly low power.
RAM: 2 gigs of Kingston EEC DDR2-800.
Video: An XFX GeForce 8600 256Meg card. Nothing special, it was cheap, and can handle a DVI output. It has an annoying little fan on it though.
Hard drives: A pair of 80G Seagate 7200-11 series Barracuda drives in RAID 1. I wont need a lot of drive space on this thing, since I plan on having a separate file/media server. It's enough for the OS, any apps I would run on it, the web server and whatever else might happen. RAID 1 mirrors the data on two drives, if one bites the dust, the other keeps it going. The drives themselves are very low power as well.
Optical: A Samsung 20X DVD/CD burner with Lightscribe. It was cheap.
Power Supply: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750. While it is an oversized supply for this thing, it's one of the most efficient at less than half load, and the big capacitors inside can absorb any sorts of glitches while it loafs along.
Case: Cooler Master Centurion. It was free. When I bought something (I think it was a bigass hard drive) from Newegg.com, I found it as part of a combo deal. Buy the drive, get (x) for free. This was the most expensive thing offered among the options, and shipping was free. The case is nice, with a lot of room for expansion and good cooling. The fans I got today finished it off. It's got these peculiar side columns that flank the front of the case, I guess they work well as handles. It looks racy with it's perforated metal front and all-black color. The top mounted controls and jacks are a cool touch.
I rounded up other bits I had laying around to complete the thing, flashed the BIOS to the latest version tidied up the cabling and all that.
This week looks like a busy one. I gotta get the trailer ready for our first camping trip of the season to Deep Creek Lake at the end of the month. I want to pull the wheels and brake drums off to check the brakes out, inspect and lube the bearings, and clean the things up and do minor repairs and upgrades. I will probably get a new set of tires being that I heard some horror stories of blowouts with these Chinese off-brand (Mission? WTF?) things. Problem is, it's getting more and more difficult to find any trailer-duty tires not made in China, regardless of brand. Same is true for other tire types and brands. Of course, being made in China is not always a sign of inferior quality, but historically, things are not so rosy. A blowout of a trailer tire can be nasty.
Hope y'all have a good week.
Last night I assembled my new server to replace the 10 year old beast that's been living in the basement and working nonstop. The new one is awaiting an OS install, once that is done, I am hoping the new box is at least half as reliable as the old one.
I built the new box with an eye on efficiency, expandability and flexibility. I also wanted to make use of some parts I had laying around. This is what finally came together.
Motherboard: Asus M2N32 WS Pro. Not actually a server mobo per se, but one geared towards workstation duty. An AMD AM2+ mobo, with lots of connectivity built in. While I wont be running SLI video in it, the capability is there. Two PCI-E X16 slots, two PCI-E X1 slots, a pair of 133MHz PCI-X slots, and a lone PCI slot. It has Firewire, USB, dual Gigabit LAN ports, a whopping 10 SATA ports, and many other goodies.
CPU: An AMD Athlon X2 4600. I pulled this from my digital audio workstation when I upgraded to an X2-6000. I figure it will do nicely as a simple server chip, plus it's fairly low power.
RAM: 2 gigs of Kingston EEC DDR2-800.
Video: An XFX GeForce 8600 256Meg card. Nothing special, it was cheap, and can handle a DVI output. It has an annoying little fan on it though.
Hard drives: A pair of 80G Seagate 7200-11 series Barracuda drives in RAID 1. I wont need a lot of drive space on this thing, since I plan on having a separate file/media server. It's enough for the OS, any apps I would run on it, the web server and whatever else might happen. RAID 1 mirrors the data on two drives, if one bites the dust, the other keeps it going. The drives themselves are very low power as well.
Optical: A Samsung 20X DVD/CD burner with Lightscribe. It was cheap.
Power Supply: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750. While it is an oversized supply for this thing, it's one of the most efficient at less than half load, and the big capacitors inside can absorb any sorts of glitches while it loafs along.
Case: Cooler Master Centurion. It was free. When I bought something (I think it was a bigass hard drive) from Newegg.com, I found it as part of a combo deal. Buy the drive, get (x) for free. This was the most expensive thing offered among the options, and shipping was free. The case is nice, with a lot of room for expansion and good cooling. The fans I got today finished it off. It's got these peculiar side columns that flank the front of the case, I guess they work well as handles. It looks racy with it's perforated metal front and all-black color. The top mounted controls and jacks are a cool touch.
I rounded up other bits I had laying around to complete the thing, flashed the BIOS to the latest version tidied up the cabling and all that.
This week looks like a busy one. I gotta get the trailer ready for our first camping trip of the season to Deep Creek Lake at the end of the month. I want to pull the wheels and brake drums off to check the brakes out, inspect and lube the bearings, and clean the things up and do minor repairs and upgrades. I will probably get a new set of tires being that I heard some horror stories of blowouts with these Chinese off-brand (Mission? WTF?) things. Problem is, it's getting more and more difficult to find any trailer-duty tires not made in China, regardless of brand. Same is true for other tire types and brands. Of course, being made in China is not always a sign of inferior quality, but historically, things are not so rosy. A blowout of a trailer tire can be nasty.
Hope y'all have a good week.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 05:13 am (UTC)I am most likely going to use MS Server '03, maybe even give '08 a try. Since the house is full of Windoze machines, it would be the easiest for me to get running, plus, I am used to it. I am such a Linux noob anyway, though the thought had crossed my mind. There is so much to pick from on that end.
stimulus cheque
Date: 2008-05-19 11:44 am (UTC)