Building a server?

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I'm thinking of building a server for my small business, so it doesn't need to be a monster. I've never built a server so I'm not sure if it's worth it or not to do it, but I'd really love to try to build one of my own, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks!
 
depending on your needs a server could cost as little as $200 (less if you use used parts) or as much as $15000. I've personally got an Athlon 64 3200+ with 1GB of ram and 1TB (500GBx2) HDDs. all the hardware excludeing the tape drive was less than $1000 but the tape drive (260 GB sony AIT3) cost about $1000 and the operateing system (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) cost in excess of $1000 which brought the total cost to slightly over $3000(it was actually closer to $4000 when I built it but I converted the prices down for hardware price drops). If you don't need tape backup or you settle for an older lower capacity model (20GB Taravan Drives can be had for less than $300 and AIT1,DDS4,DAT 72 drives run about $500) and you use a free linux server OS or a cheeper OS such as windows server, Xandros, or a cheeper version of redhat. You should be able to build a good server for $500-$1500.
For a true network server(that has the network connections of all systems in the buisness running through it) I would recomend nothing less than an Athlon 64 or Pentium 4. For a dedicated file server (for storeing files only and not for network operations) a Pentium MMX will be sufficent (Pentium 3 or higher recomended).
 
One thing I forgot to ask about also was a dedicated internet server for displaing pictures and descriptions for parts, and instructional videos for parts (no internet uploads or downloads).
 
The amount of power you will need will depend on the number of users accessing the server at once. For video you will want a relitively fast server due to the high bit rates involved.
 
Let's say the server gets 5000 hits per day and the max hits per hour is 300-400 for 8hrs straight. Would a Intel dual core pentium D 915, 2.8GHz, be enough, or what would it take. and what else is needed to handle the hits.
 
That should do fine. Just make sure to give it plenty of ram. Also get a verry good CPU cooler, Pentium D's like all prescott derivitives run very hot but this can be remidied by a good cpu cooler. I would recomend a PC Power & Cooling (Seasonics are great also but they usually cost as much as PCP&C so I would choose PCP&C if the priceis similar) powersupply for any server due to their stability and long term reliability. Here's a link
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/home/
The silencer 470 (I have this one in my server) @$99 is a good option. The 360 & 310 don't have 24pin connectors which makes them incompatible with socket 775 boards.
 
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