The Home Server Challenge
So I want to build myself a server. Nothing special, just a box I can attach to my network, tuck away, use to host music, test websites, and generally just play around with. It would be little more than a toy, so it’s got to be cheap. So how cheap can I buy a simple computer for?
Anyone who buys a newspaper, or any other regularly printed publication, must have come across one of Dell’s sales brochures. You know, the kind that advertise full desktop systems with a monitor and all the giblets for a song and sixpence? People ask me, “how can they do it?” They ask me all the time. Seriously.
Well, it’s no secret really. Basically, take the price of an off-the-shelf component. Now divide it by ten. That’s what Dell pays. That’s how Dell does it.
But that’s not the point of this post. The point is, can a simple consumer such as I, paying end consumer prices, get better value for money with nothing but a bit of careful shopping? All I want my proposed machine to do is sit on my network, and host some stuff. It’s not going to play 3D games, or crack DES.
Let’s take Dell’s cheapest non-clearance desktop machine as an example. At the time of writing, Dell offers the Dimension C521 for £249 inclusive of VAT and shipping. So what exactly do you get for your hard-earned money?
| Component | Specification |
|---|---|
| OS | Vista Home Basic |
| CPU | AMD Sempron 3400 |
| RAM | 512MB 533MHz DDR2 |
| Video | Onboard GeForce 6150 |
| HDD | 160GB SATA |
On top of all that you also get a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, a year’s collect-and-return warranty, Microsoft Works, a case, and a keyboard and mouse. All of which probably costs Dell about 2p.
It’s important to note you do not get a monitor with this machine, but that suits my needs perfectly. The specs Dell have here would handle typical home-user tasks (email, word processing, music/video, and some of the less demanding games) more than adequately. Storage isn’t to be sniffed at either. Or in other words, it would make a great home server. This spec is where I’ll set my sights.
Right, on to the challenge. £250 for a complete package sounds like quite a good deal, doesn’t it? So how about I make things interesting by not only trying to top the performance, but save 20% at the same time? A more capable machine for £200. Sounds quite attractive. So, how do I spend my budget?
| Component | Budget | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| OS | £0! | Yup, nothing at all. We’re going Open Source, baby! |
| CPU | £45 | CPUs are difficult things to upgrade. If you want a faster processor, you need to replace your existing one. However, 18 months from now, a new socket type could well have obsoleted your motherboard. We’ll spend more here to increase the lifespan of the components chosen |
| RAM | £30 | We’ll aim to match Dell here; 512MB is more than enough to play with, and if we get that on a single chip, we’ll have slots free to upgrade later |
| Mainboard | £35 | Our goal is a no-nonsense, sit-anywhere machine, so we’ll be playing with the µATX (micro-ATX) form factor, and aiming for onboard graphics and sound |
| Case | £30 | It should be easy enough to find a suitable µATX case (with PSU!) for this much, but don’t expect aluminium (or style) |
| HDD | £35 | Hard disks are cheaper than ever, but we’re looking for a nice and fast SATA II drive, somewhere between 100 and 200 GB |
| Extras | £25 | CD drive? Do you really need another keyboard and mouse? |
| Total | £200 | Don’t forget we’ve got to get shipping into the total somewhere, but we’re off to a good start! |
Obviously, going down the Linux road is going to make an instant saving on the hidden cost of the Windows license. Ubuntu is really mature these days, and even though I’ll probably never see it if I’m running this box as a stand-alone server, it does some really nice things with the Gnome desktop environment. I could slap a monitor on and get pretty graphics, if I wanted.
There’s no performance advantage to going with the micro-ATX form factor, and I could probably even shave a few pounds off the price of a motherboard and a case if I chose something full-size instead, but I thought it fitting to choose something smaller than usual for this task.
Right, let’s hit the web! Shop shop shop!
Shopping ends. Here’s the first revision of my sub-£200 machine:
| Component | Specification | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| OS | Ubuntu Linux 7.04 | Free! | Not just free, but Free! |
| CPU | AMD Athlon 64 3600+ | £44.53 | Dual core! Intel offer better performance-per-pound higher up the CPU spectrum, but AMD generally dominate the budget market |
| RAM | 512MB Corsair XMS2 800MHz DDR2 | £27.01 | Corsair are a fairly respectable brand of memory. I could save by going with some generic or value brand, but Corsair’s warranty should ensure these chips are memorising for years |
| Mainboard | Asus M2V-MX | £34.04 | Asus is my favourite motherboard brand, and this tiny board features some DX9-compatible onboard graphics adapter that will hopefully never output another line once the OS has been installed |
| Case | Scan Colors IT 6003-C34 | £29.32 | Whatever case you end up buying will depend heavily on what your supplier has in stock when you go to buy; budget cases come and go. I chose this one to illustrate that it’s possible to get a case with power supply for under 30 quid. It’s also black. With more money, it would be nice to purchase a branded PSU, one with higher efficiency and less likely to explode |
| HDD | 160GB Samsung SpinPoint | £33.95 | Another example of picking a favoured brand over pure price. Samsung make reliable, quiet disks, which should be perfect for our server. More money would mean more space, and I’ve love to do something with RAID, but this will get us started, and it’s easy to upgrade later |
| Extras | CD/DVD-RW | £19.96 | A CD/DVD writer may be handy. There are probably about one million drives for under £20. I chose this one because it’s black. If you don’t already have a keyboard and mouse (not that you’ll need one for very long), then you can pick them up for chips in all good Pound shops/charity stores/computer fairs I’m sure. |
| Total | £188.81 | That leaves just over £11 for shipping. In my example, buying everything from Scan brought my total up to £200.94 including VAT and shipping |
I’m 94p over budget. I’m devastated. I guess everyone should just go home now, because I failed the challenge. It can’t be done. Damn you, Dell! DAMN YOU TO HELL! My only hope now is to calculate how long Moore’s Law will take to reduce the total cost of my specification by 94 English pence, then claim like I had planned it to be under-budget all the time…