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Hardware

Inexpensive Network Servers? 45

Posted by Cliff from the hardware-recommendations dept.
Linuxthess asks: "I work in a small company with only 20 or so employees. Being the most tech-savvy of them I find myself doing less work as a salesman, and more as their non-paid tech support. I was asked for a solution to create a domain for login authentication, a DHCP server, a webserver, file & printer services, and e-mail. I found three such companies with an inexpensive, yet solid products aimed at what we need: one is Celestix with their Aries and Taurus products; there is a company in Chicago called Dartek which sell a custom-built box called iMass which comes in three flavors; and lastly a company in Canada named Net Integration Technologies Inc who has a box named Net Integrator that is available in various flavors. Does anyone have experience in regard to these solutions? I think we will go along with the Taurus, but I want to hear a little more regarding the quality of doing this job inexpensively (these things start from $800 and go until $3000). I spoke with a tech-support guy, and he told me customers buy a couple of these since they're so cheap for redundancy, and clustering."
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Inexpensive Network Servers? More

Inexpensive Network Servers?

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  • Get a used one. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Wednesday February 06, 2002 @06:07PM (#2964010)
    Save you 1/2 the money, and you generally know if the models gonna be a lemon or not. Youre not gonna need the top of the line server for office stuff anyway, just something reliable.
  • Since you apparently have the opportunity, why not get them started right. When choosing your software solutions, make sure you go with open standards, not proprietary ones. Also, follow the FP's advice and get used HW if you can... or at least not the top-of-the-line. Perhaps it's just my freedom-fighting hippiness, but I'd take an opportunity like this and run with it (as I have here, implimenting 4 Linux servers in our NW/NT environment).
  • you pretty much just described every flavor of linux and *bsd running samba, sendmail and a dhcp server.

    just grab an old workstation, install Slackware(or whatever flavor you like) and you're golden.

    plus as time goes on, you can upgrade to your heart's content with off the shelf components.
  • If your company isn't dead set on having a commercial solution, a commodity PC ($500 or less) with samba, dhcpd and a pop/imap daemon would more than suffice for your needs. Windows 2000 domain support isn't all it could be, but if all you need to do is set up file/print sharing and login authentication for the domain that will work.

    This has the advantage of costing only whatever you spend on the PC and your time setting it up (Linux/BSD & the associated programs listed above are all freely available), but unfortunately you would be on your own to admin and support it. In the end I think that it would balance out in the company's favor though, as well as providing relatively easy upgrade paths for the future.

  • Mitel SME Server (Score:4, Informative)

    by jvhaarst ( 64020 ) on Wednesday February 06, 2002 @06:33PM (#2964195)
    I'd go for the Mitel SME [e-smith.org] server, a _very_ easy to install Linux distribution made for these kind of situations.
    Installation and maintenance is a no brainer.
    I think Mandrake and Suse also makes similar products.

  • Cobalt? (Score:1)

    by pmz ( 462998 )
    I don't have experience with them, but I have seen that Sun markets Cobalt servers [sun.com] that might be appropriate for your needs.
  • Go get an old pentium, with lots of harddrive space. USe freesco, a free linux router/ server project. There are addons such as samba, mail server, ftp server, ssh, all kinds of stuff.
    Check it out.
    www.freesco.org

  • Solaris + PCNetlink (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Wednesday February 06, 2002 @08:36PM (#2964833)
    Solaris 8 ships free with their hardware, and the PC NetLink package can be downloaded for free. $999 for a 1U rackable Netra server gets you native NT4-style PDC and BDC support (NOT Samba, licensed from AT&T way back), DHCP, DNS, HTTP, etc.
    • Not only is it cheap, Sun has absolutely incredible tech support. You really can't beat it.

      As long as you're comfortable with a System V based UNIX, this is a VERY nice option.

  • Comodity and ease (Score:2, Interesting)

    by itzdandy ( 183397 )
    just how computer savy are you?

    do you have linux experience?, BSD?

    i would suggest that if you are, that you go with comodity hardware, only the best equipment, and dont confuse highest quality with top of the line.

    AMD chips have proven themself very reliable and very fast for the price.
    Get a good ASUS,Soltek,Soyo,Abit, or Tyan motherboard and an AthlonXP 1500+, this is all you should need for a small office like you have, in fact prob. a little more.

    get crucial, corsair, or mushkin DDR memory. Some others are fine to but GET GOOD RAM!

    you can build a modest server for $600-$800 and run a Linux or BSD. You choise of distro but some are easier than others. For a super easy distro, mandrake8 has everything you need including samba, DHCP, and email servers on the disk, and it can be downloaded for free OR a version with some tech support can be had on the cheap from mandrakesoft.

    Also, Redhat offers setup and tech support for a good price on servers. They would come and set your system up for you and get you started, make your life easy for not too much $$. And RedHat is a very solid distro.

    Debian is GREAT, but hard to set up if your not a "guru"

    you can make a VERY good performing comodity PC function just fine for you until your company grows to need a higher end system.
    • In my admittedly small experience, I have not had many problems with Debian, and I have been using Linux for only 9 months. I haven't had any experience with setting up samba or a server of any kind, but the Debian install was quite intuitive, especially if you know someone who has done it before.

      But I would go with Red Hat unless you try Debian at home first. Red Hat is MUCH easier to install.
  • Ok, I just noticed this thread of full of hostility. Wow. I'm amazed.

    I just went to that iMass website that was presented as a link in the post and I got a cute little banner advertising to all slashdot visitors. So now that everyone has done their trolling and flaming and even got some targeted advertising do we feel better? It's amazing how we have the epitamy of the web all bundled up into facad of a discussion.

    Use whats right for you at work. If it's an appliance, Linux, *BSD, UNIX(tm), or a Windows then so be it.

  • You're missing some essential information, such as how many users is your web server going to serve (the 20 office people, or 100k customers), is DHCP for the 20 workstations, or 1000 dialup users, and is your company Email intensive? Are the 20 people working there doing support Email for Microsoft, or just normal idle chatter?

    I'll assume it's a small company, with small company needs, with a little room for growth. If there are different needs, you'd probably need an additional server or two for whatever your loads are.

    I'll also have to assume you have a working knowlege of NT/W2K and Unix (Linux specifically). If not, this won't work very well for you. If I was hired at your place today, and told to do it, this is the way it would be done.

    First off, build the servers yourself, if you know how. I would build two servers, usage to be outlined below. This would be the order to my hardware vendor. They'll work within these specs, and have the parts to me the same day.

    -Fastest and most cost efficent CPU. Probably just over 1Ghz of either AMD or Intel
    -*GOOD* CPU Fan (you don't want to worry about it in a year)
    -Asus motherboard w/ integrated LAN & video
    -Crucial memory 512Mb. is a good start.
    -2 Western Digital IDE Hard drives. One smaller one (~16G) for the OS, one larger one (~100G)for any stored data.
    -Case. CalPC 1U Rackmount (for rack use), or Enlight midtower if you don't have a rack. ($300 cheaper for the midtower).

    Your cost should be betwen $800-$1000 per machine, depending on how bad your hardware vendor rips you off.

    You probably also want to buy a CD burner for your workstation. Tapes are cool and big and the bosses like having the tapes safely tucked away in the office vault, but it sucks waiting 8 hours for a restore to roll through, just to find out it didn't store even though everything looked like it did. Have a nice little stack of CD's with all the important stuff on it, and burn new ones occasionally (monthly?). CD's are a *LOT* cheaper than tapes anyways. (less than 50 cents each in bulk).

    You could save more money, buying a cheaper motherboard, or cheaper hard drives, but you'll find out it's really not worth it. Which would you prefer, having hardware that never fails, or getting a call every morning at 8am when the staff comes in and can't log in because the PDC is dead.

    Now you have two nice stable affordable servers, which will never cause you hardware problems or have mysterious crashes. We build out similiar machines for workstations, since they're cheap.

    If you're only doing a little file sharing, that's fine. If you're doing serious file storage, you should consider getting a RAID 5. I personally like the external IDE RAID's. It attaches to a SCSI card in the server, and has 5-6 IDE hard drives in it. There are quite a few companies that build them. IDE is a good choice, they run cool and are cheap if one fails. Because it's RAID 5, you just yank the broken one out, and stick in a new one, without doing anything (ours auto-rebuilds).

    On the first machine, set up WinNT/Win2k (forgive me).. Make this your PDC (for login auth), and Print server. That's it. Nothing else. Not a workstation or anything. You *could* let it be a workstation, but the gods of security will laugh at you.

    On the second machine, install Linux. I like Slackware (slackware.com). Configure dhcpd, httpd, samba, sendmail, pop3, and possibly imapd. To give you a hint of how easy it is, sendmail pop3 and imapd are already done. dhcpd takes all of about 5 lines in a conf file. httpd is already done, but you'll want to eventually customize. samba isn't all that hard, especially if you've done it before. I copy the same smb.conf around all over the place, just changing the machine's name and share specs.

    I've never set up samba to be a PDC or BDC, but it is very possible. It's documented, I've just never done it. You can make the Linux machine BDC, or use a low-end spare (Pentium 166 or so), or volunteer a NT4/W2k workstation.

    Honestly, you could have the slackware machine completely done in an hour.

    This way is probably a better choice in the long run. Those other companies may be out of business or not supporting your box in a year, and if something needs done, you could be screwed (buy a new box from us). With this solution, you're wide open to being able to fix things yourself. Do windowsupdates on the NT server, install the patches from TechNet. Fix whatever needs fixed on the Linux box (it's easy, honest)..

    Here's what it takes to do upgrades on the Linux machine.

    cd /usr/src/
    wget http://[whateverpackage]
    tar xvpzf [package].tar.gz
    cd [packagedir]
    ./configure
    make
    make install

    You won't even have to reboot. :)

    I apologize to anyone who thinks this is an unpopular approach, but it's worked very well in several businesses that either I've worked with or simply know someone working at. Little pieces change depending on use. Like, if you're trying to be a hosting company, you'd have multiple independent web servers.
    • I can vouch for that. A Windows machine to handle the really windows-ish stuff, and a slackware box for the heavy lifting is a good, balanced solution., and has worked very well for me in the past.
    • Just another note - Get ECC memory. It costs a few bucks more, but if your chipset supports it (and almost all do since the BX) it is well worth it in the long run. A cheap, effective increase to data integrity is always a Good Thing.
  • That at the bottom of the Dartek page for the iMass [dartek.com] they have a banner which says "Attention Slashdot readers: Receive an instant rebate off the iMass of your choice"?

    The exact link to the pic is here [dartek.com]. Odd eh? Talk about targeted advertsing
    • The funny part is the line of text at the bottom of that graphic:

      "Instant rebate offer expires 1/31/02"

      When did they post that graphic? Assuming that it was in response to this article is that date a typo or is there really no rebate?

  • Sun Netra X1s (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lw54 ( 73409 )
    If you don't decide to buy a premade solution, we're very happy with our Sun Netra X1s [sun.com] and at $995, they're quite affordable.
  • Salesguy: "Er, yeah, actually, our customers usually buy, like, a dozen or more. Because they're so good. Er."

    Tech: "Really? How many do you think *I* should get?"

    Salesguy: "What's your credit card limit like?"
  • The are very small, 1U and can be racked in a rack, no need for a cabinet. A lot of intel 1U servers are so deep that you can't rack them in a 19" rack, you need a cabinet to support the back of the server. I currently have 12 of these things doing DNS, DHCP, web serving, WebObjects app serving, LDAP server, and file serving. Standard IDE HD's, you can mount two of them. I have one with 2 100GB drives. They also take standard PC-133 ECC RAM, up to 2GB. They also don't use much power.
  • The Cobalt Qube and Celestix servers are both excellent. The Qube 3 is actually exactly what you are looking for. Play with the demo here; [cobalt.com] get product information here. [cobalt.com]

    I would recommend against going with a barebones, non-appliance box. The reason I recommend Cobalt/Celestix is that they are a cinch to set up. They both have web-based UIs that let you set up email lists, file shares, etc. easily. I've used the Qube3 extensively and it simply rocks. I haven't used the Celestix stuff personally, but I've heard that it is just as good as Cobalt.

    Both are supported by a company that is used to supporting non-technical users, and neither require you to have a full-time Linux guru on staff.

    Your other choice is to run a Windows 2000 server, which is also pretty easy to set up and maintain. The Windows server will be more flexible for the future. Still, for as small a company as you have, an appliance would be a better solution for now.

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