I needed a cheap, fast and reliable 24/7 web and file server in my office. The server was to be used for central file storage and backups between the office computers, FTP remote access to files and as a fully functional web host for lower traffic websites.
Every price mentioned includes shipping and taxes to Minnesota. None of the products purchased involved a rebate – they were just straight up good deals. Unless listed otherwise, all components were brand-new and not refurbished. The purchases were made over the course of a week in the beginning of November; prices may have dropped even lower since then. Some products were obtained on ebay - if I found something for a particular price, that means with a few days of patience, you can find the same product for a lower or equal price on ebay too.
Athenatech MicroATX Case with 270 watt Power Supply
Normally, when building a cheap file server, the case is of little importance. For significant savings, a ancient PC can purchased and gutted from Goodwill for under $10. This is fine if you are going to stick it in your closet, or your office looks like a college dorm room – however I do believe appearance matters, and this attractive small form-factor case from Athenatech fit the bill. It comes with an ample 270 watt power supply, 2 rear 60mm case fans, and room for 5 hard drives (3 or 4 if you need a CD drive and/or floppy drive). While not as small as Mac Mini, this case is about half the size of a normal PC and about as small as Micro ATX cases come. $56.41 at Newegg.com
ASUS A7N266-VM AMD 462 Micro ATX Motherboard, Used
Since I was using a mATX (Micro ATX) sized case, only a mATX motherboard could be used. Fortunately, while these boards may be smaller than standard size, they offer just about the same features and speed as their bigger brothers. There we a few requirements I needed of this motherboard; AMD processor support (more on that later), and on-board ethernet and video (so I did not have to purchase a separate video and LAN card). $35.50 on Ebay
AMD Duron 1.6GHz 266MHz CPU, Fan & Heatsink included, Used
Why did I choose an AMD processor over a Pentium? A better bang for my buck. Plain and simple, the processing-power-per-penny for AMD is better than Pentium – and I only had $200 to spend so away we go! While I was a slightly nervous about purchasing a used processor, my $200 budget reminded me that is was OK. Motherboards can very specific regarding what CPUs they support, so make sure to check before you buy. My goal was to get at least 1 gigahertz of processing power to support PHP and MySQL on the web server. $35.00 on Ebay
128mb PC2100 Stick of Memory, Used
128 megabytes of RAM is the bare minimum I would recommend to anyone interested in running more than a simple web server. For file serving and basic HTTP-only web serving, 128mb is more than enough juice, however I wanted to be able to run PHP, MySQL, Perl and on occasion, Ventrillo. Also, depending on what operating system you are planning on using in your server, it may have minimum RAM requirements. For instance, Windows XP has minimum requirement of 64mb of RAM. $7.00 on Ebay
Maxtor Diamondmax 80gb, 7200rpm, 16MB IDE OEM Hard Drive
80gb was more than enough hard drive to space to suit my current server's needs. My operating system and program files only took up 5gb, leaving roughly 70gb of free space. Websites typically take up very little file space, and my core office and client files weren't more than a couple dozen gigabytes. $41.00 at ichibanpc.com
48X Hewlett-Packard CD-ROM Drive, Internal IDE, OEM
While not necessary for a file/web server, having a CD Drive made installing my operating system and programs files much more convenient. If I ever need to install any programs in the future, it is as simple as inserting the CD, as apposed to a network install. $10.24 on Ebay
Two 18" Round IDE ATA 133/100 Cables
Since both my hard-drive and CD-Rom Drive were OEM, they did not come with cables to connect them to the motherboard. Round cables are slightly unnecessary for a file/web server, but they were cheaper than ribbon cables on ebay. $7.20 on Ebay
Panaflo 80mm Case Fan
My Athenatech case came with an extra place for a fan at the front of the case. Placing a fan in the front of the case, facing inwards and blowing in cold air, can have a significant effect on the overall temperature inside your server – which in turn will lead to a longer life of your components. 80mm fans tend to be very noisy, however Panaflo makes very quiet, affordable fans. $4.98 on Ebay
Cat5e Cable, 25ft
Finally I needed a way to connect this baby to the internet, and there ain't nothing better than 25 feet of Category 5e Ethernet cable to do so. $4.98 on Ebay
um, aren't you missing somethingwhat about a monitor, keyboard and mouse? Not needed. If you already own a monitor, keyboard and mouse these can be plugged into the server until you get it up-and-running. However once a server is functionally stable, there will be little need to access it directly. If you do not own a monitor, keyboard and mouse – then the purchase of these components will obviously blow the $200 goal out of the water, sorry.
In a magical world, putting this hardware together and plugging in the power cord would spring the computer to life – however in the real world, software is still needed to tie everything together. For my operating system, I choose Windows XP as I had an "extra" copy of it lying around and am scared and unfamiliar with Linux/Unix OS. Granted Windows is not available for free (not legally anyways – and I wouldn't know anything about that) like the aforementioned operating systems, so if you choose Windows, you may need to factor that cost into your server build. Windows is not necessary, there are many other FREE alternative operation systems available.
Once Windows XP was installed, every other program I needed was free to download and use. Apache for HTTP serving. ActivePerl, PHP, and MySQL for dynamic content. Filezilla for remote FTP access. Sharing files between my all of my office computers is handled by Windows File Sharing. I won't go into the gory details of software setup, but plenty of good tutorials are available online and are just a google search away. Anyone with a semi-geek understanding of computers will be able to setup the file/web server applications with ease - all of the aformentioned programs are available in automatic instalation formats.
Grand Total: $202.31
In conclusion, I have been running my server 24/7 for close to a month without a single glitch. It is quiet, runs reasonably fast and looks slick. If you have extra money to spend, here are a few easy upgrades I can recommend.
- More RAM, servers love to eat up memory – especially MySQL. I plan to upgrade to at least 512mb if not 1gb when I can.
- Uninterrupted power supply. If your power goes out, you don't want your server to be shut down. I was able to find a used UPS/Surge Protector that will keep my server alive for an hour while the power is out for $14.00 on ebay.
- KVM Switch. This device will enable you to hook up multiple computers to a single Monitor, keyboard and mouse. At the press of a button, you can switch between controlling each of the connected computers. This is very useful for micro-managing your server without having an extra monitor, keyboard and mouse for it. These can be found on ebay for less than $30.00.
- Larger, bigger and faster hard-drives. Because you can really never have enough storage space.
- With the addition of a little more RAM and a video card with a TV output, this server could easily be converted into a media PC for streaming movies and music around your house.
Article was last edited on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 @ 4:13 PM
