Build server for Virtual machines

[Guest]

I'm a software engineer. Thinking of building a server for home use.

Plan to install
Database server VM (oracle, sql server, Mongo DB)
Application server(IIS, Apache Tomcat, Apache)
Build Integration server (Teamcity, Cruise control, TFS)
Version control(Subversion, TFS, Git)
DNS Server etc..


My budget is less than 1000. I want to have Dual CPU preferably Quad core with HT/ AMD Dual 8 Core.


Initially I may only install 1 CPU and 8 GB and plan to add more CPU and memory in the future.

What are my best options?

Thanks,

 

[smorizio]

Look at asus..tyan..super micro server motherboards. Company like tyan have one u servers allready made. Look on new egg at the one and two u server chaise. Most already have the power supply in them.

 

[bambiboom]

NaveenChakravarthy,

Looking at the requirements, of a dual CPU motherboard, the CPU, ECC RAM, reasonable video card, the number of drives, and etc., it appears very difficult to achieve for $1,000- a good dual CPU motherboard would be $300 or $400- and that is with 3GB/s SATA, a single AMD Opteron 4-core 6308 series is $520, 16 GB RAM is $150, drives $400-600, then there the case, a video card, power supply, and so on. I think this specification is closer to a $2,000 computer new.

Because of the requirements to budget, I believe it might make better sense to buy a used computer that can be upgraded to a server function. For this, I'm thinking of a Dell Precision T5400 or T7400. These are very closely related to Dell Poweredge servers in that they have dual Xeon CPU boards, can use quite a bit of ECC RAM- 32GB for the T5400 and 192GB in the T7400, have both PCI-e and PCI-X slots, and quite large power supplies- 875W and 1000W. Here is a used T5400 with two 3.0GHz quad core Xeons >

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T5400-Workstation-2-x-XEON-5160-3-0GHz-2GB-80GB-DVD-ROM-Win-XPPro-/180775629089?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item2a17113121

> selling for $400. To put this into perspective, that computer new cost at least $4,000 as each Xeon alone would have cost about $1,200.

These have a very good onboard RAID controller but to further enhance the disk system, this series Precisions uses from the Poweredge servers two PCI-X 133MHz slots- a kind of bridge between PCI and PCI-e. LSI Logic made some very good server/workstation RAID controllers for the PCI-X slot that originally cost $400 but are now very reasonable. because the PCI-X slot is obsolete. I recently bought a used LSI SAS3080X for $15.- 8 port RAID controller that lists a PCI data burst transfer rate of 2.4GB/s but will - I hope- based on others' reports of these to improve my average/ read writes speed from about 130MB/s to about 300MB/s. We'll see. Along with the RAID controller, add a RAID configuration of 0 + 1 and the number and capacities of drives needed. Then, a reasonable video card like a GTX 650ti and some more RAM- DDR2 is unfortunately more expensive than DDR3 though- I think you would have a very reliable, and reasonably good performance server within your budget.

For 3D CAD and graphics application I use > Dell Precision T5400 $500 in 2010> 2X Xeon quad core X5460 @3.16GHz (2nd CPU/Heatsink +$80), 16GB RAM (+12GB for $140), Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) (Upgraded from Quadro FX 580, new $1,200, purchased for +$120 in 2012), WD RE4 500GB (+$80) / Segate Brcda 500GB drives, 875W power supply > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (+$75) = total about $900

Just an idea for your consideration.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[NaveenChakravarthy]

Thank you so much Bambiboom and smorizio. I have drives, powersupply. Even I have big gaming case.