Hi Michael, On Mon, Nov 05, 2012 at 12:53:22AM +0000, Michael James Daffin wrote: > My server has recently died (it has been on its last legs for a while now) > and I am looking for a replacement. I think that the motherboard has gone > so basically looking for a complete replacement (other then the hard disk > drives that is). > > I don't mind a motherboard/cpu/ram bundle or a completed units as long as > it meets the basic requirements below. I was looking into home/small > business servers, but a desktop that matches the requirements would also do. > > My price range is around *£200-400*
With that low a budget I don't think you will beat an HP Microserver. They are still available with £100 cashback. The base model costs only around £190+VAT so this works out incredible value for money. > *Basic Requirements:* > > - 4+ SATA ports The Microserver has four 3.5" hot swap SATA bays plus you can fit one more 3.5" SATA drive above that in the place where the optical drive is meant to go, if you use a 5.25" bracket. It also has an eSATA port on the motherboard though I have heard that without a BIOS update this doesn't support port multipliers, i.e. you can only attach one disk to it. The base model comes with a single 250G SATA disk. > - Max of 8GB+ ram The Microserver only has two RAM slots, so it will go to 2x8G of DDR3 ECC. It does come with 1x2G so if going to more than 2x2G you'd have to remove that. > - Processor capable of virtualisation It's an AMD Turion II Neo at 1.3GHz or 1.5GHz (depending on whether you get the N36L or the N40L model). These are not fast CPUs, but they are low power, 64-bit and support virtualisation. > - Gigabit network port Yeah it has one. tg3 driver. > *Features that would be nice to have:* > > - USB 3.0 ports (or a PCIe slot to plug the one I have in) Four USB on the front, two on the back, one internal. They are all USB 2.0 though. > - Integrated graphics card Good enough for VGA, yes.. > - 6+ SATA ports Only has five SATA ports internally and one eSATA. > - Hot swap hdd bays/Easy way to remove the drives For four of them yes. > - Quite (it sits in our living room next to the tv) The chassis has one big fan, so that goes pretty slowly. I haven't found it particularly noisy. I think 6 SATA drives will be noisier. > - Low power (it is on all the time) The CPU has a TDP of about 15W. > I am very flexible with everything listed but the basic requirements (it > must have them) listed above. If you need more than four hot swap disks then I think a Microserver plus an eSATA disk enclosure will be cheaper and better than most single devices you could buy. The build quality of the Microserver itself is very good, allowing you to take the whole thing apart without tools. In terms of PCIe, it also has: 1 x PCI Express x16 (half-height / half length slot) 1 x PCI Express x1 (half-height / half length slot) So maybe that would get you USB3.0 and/or more eSATA. More info: http://n40l.wikia.com/wiki/HP_MicroServer_N40L_Wiki Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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