Re: [tlug] New Custom Server for Linux - Advice Needed

[Jim <jep200404@example.com>]

Matt Gross wrote:

> ...500,000 yen... 

That might be too _much_ money. 

> *	Dual CPU with hyper threading

OK. 

> *	RAID 5 (Software or Hardware - what do you recommend?)

Hardware!!!

Also, have offsite backup, which could be an old '486 with big 
honkin' drives. (Actually the BIOS could cause you grief. 
A late 1990s computer would cause much less grief, 
although by the late 90s, one is getting into the era of 
bad electrolytic capacitors.) The offsite backup will help 
use up your 500,000 yen. 

> *	4GB of Memory

Nice! (especially for virtual machines!)

> The goal is to install a Fedora system with Xen. 

Fedora is a toy operating system, not for serious business use. 

> Then to create multiple guest systems to replace several 
> individual servers I have scattered around my apartment.

OK. Since the server is a personal toy, then Fedora is just fine. 

> What I would like advice/recommendations on is the technical specs for the
> Motherboard, CPU, RAID setup, etc.  

Buy good quality RAM. Buy hardware RAID that has superb Linux support. 
Do your due diligence about Linux driver support before you buy, 
(only _part_ of which is asking the list as you just did). 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

How much does electrical power cost? If it costs about about 20 yen per kWh, 
and you let your machine run all the time, and your machine uses about 
200 Watts, quiescent, the your electrical power cost just for the 
computer would be about 

   365(days/year)*24(hours/day)*(200 Watts/(1000 Watts/kiloWatt))*(20 yen/kWh)

or about 35,000 yen/year. You will also have to pay more for air conditioning 
to pump the heat out. If your air conditioning runs half of the year, 
and you have a high efficiency air conditioner, that would add about 5000 yen/year. 
(I.e., very roughly 200 yen per year per Watt)
Over five years, that would be about 200,000 yen. So you might want to look 
at how much power the computer uses. How much power does the CPU use? 
How much does it use when idling? How much power do the hard drives use? 

How loud are the hard drives? How loud are the fans? 
Liquid cooling is very quiet. If you put the heat sinks outside your 
apartment during the cooling season, and had thermostatically controlled 
fans blow ambient air over them, you could avoid some of the cooling 
costs. 

Jim