[geeks] Home server 'problem' solved

[Lionel Peterson]

You may recall I was looking for a solution to create a 24x7 web server
running at home - I considered several options:

Sun T5220 - loud, uses about 380 Watts/hr, and suffering boot problems, but
cheap at $150ish plus drives.

Sun V240 - equally loud, slightly less power-hungry, and already paid for (but
relies on SCSI HDs)

SuperMicro quad-core 1u Xeon Server - uses half the power of the above Sun
boxes, but is just as loud (and already paid for)

Stack of Raspberry Pi (or similar) single-Board computers - after a buy-in of
a couple hundred dollars for the 4x Pi 3+, 4x microSD cards, 4x power cords +
multi-Outlet power supply, 4x cat5 jumpers and a switch, along with a chassis
from Etsy to hold them all, the savings didn't kick-in until well into the
second year of operation.

Fast-forward to Cyber/Black weekend, and I stumbled across my new server...
well, the parts to make it.

Micro center is having an in-store only blowout sale on a craptacular AMD
"eight core" CPU, the 8320E, a 3.2 GHz quad core CPU that 'looks like' eight
to the OS (think hyper-threading) on sale, along with a bundle deal on an Asus
AM3+ motherboard. After all discounts, bundle offers, and mail-in rebates the
pair cost about $40 + tax on the pre-rebate price, so just under $50 AR.

The mATX MB (links below) has 4x Dimm slots and 6x SATA ports (with some
crappy 'fake RAID' feature that supports RAID 0, 1, 10, JBOD), so it's a great
base to build a 'junk box special'. It has fairly basic on-board graphics, but
as a server it's fine, and supports HDMI, DVI-D, and VGA connections.

Couple that with two 2TB Barracuda drives previously purchased and never used,
two 16 Gig DDR3 Ram kits I had bought at a tremendous discount when RAM was
cheap and put it all in an Antec NSK2400 (SILENT) case from a previous build
and I have nice, silent server that uses about 123 Watts/hr.

So now I'm playing with OS options, as the machine will host a hand full of
VMs, both for internal and public facing web servers...

Here are the links to the items mentioned, if you're near a Microcenter
consider picking up one of these MB and CPU bundles - it's a great way to
breathe new life into an older DDR3-based system for very few dollars (after
rebate):

MB:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/465214/M5A78L-M_Plus-USB3_AM3_mATX_AMD_Mot
herboard

CPU:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/486115/FX_8320E_Black_Edition_Vishera_32_G
Hz_8_Core_AM3_Boxed_Processor

Case: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Antec_NSK2400_Fusion

Anyway, just thought I'd share the solution I found - the microcenter CPU/MB
bundle is not available online, only in-store.

Lionel