clonk Posted September 18, 2003 Share Posted September 18, 2003 Hey guys I was wondering what would be the appropriate specs for a small business' web server. We are a relatively small company and our webpage would not be a high traffic site. I am looking at these two servers from HP for the job. HP t2120 - Celeron 2.2 GHZ HP t2120 - Pentium 4 2.66 GHZ So would the Celeron system cut it? I of course plan on adding a 512 stick of RAM to each of them. Again let me stress this would not by any means be a highly trafficed site. Thanks for your advice on this matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted September 18, 2003 Share Posted September 18, 2003 I would say for a very low traffic site, it would be a perfect server for it. The only thing I would be hesitant about the server would be no RAID controller (no SCSI for that matter). If your hard drive fails, you?re in for some fun. For what your looking at doing, it would be a good start, but as your company gets larger, I would defiantly look into buying another server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OPaul Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 Well considering I run Apache with MySPQ and PHP, IIS, a proxy server, an FTP server and ICS all on a P133 with 128 megs of RAM with no problems, yea I'd say the Celeron will cut it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seethru Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 When I build my server I plan on using a Celeron to start, should be just fine for what you want to use it for. Use windows server 2003 and you'll be set :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
croka99 Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 at the moment im using a p100 8MB ram w/ 1.3GIG HD and it works great! on the same machine i run a aim like server and an irc server, dhcp server, name server, and a network boot server; all in 1 for specs of my machines goto: http://croka.mine.nu/ the specs are at the bottom of the page! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zivan56 Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 For a small company static site you could go all the way down to a 486 DX 60Mhz, I run my personal site on my P1 75Mhz with 16mb ram and its loads blazing fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgicash Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 yeah with web servers its not so much the speed of the computer as it is the speed of the internet connection (upstream). Unless of course you are doing some server side processing....scripts, databases, etc....then the computer speed actually matters... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted September 19, 2003 MVC Share Posted September 19, 2003 Is this for access on your lan, no public access? If for public, unless some specific reason you need to host it. I would highly suggest you go with a webhost - for most likely less than $100, for sure no more than $200 a year could host your site with about any thing you could need. If if just going with a simple workstation class machine - your not going to be able to touch that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clonk Posted September 19, 2003 Author Share Posted September 19, 2003 Thanks for you guy's replies. From what you are saying, it seems I don't even need to buy a new machine for this task - I have an old Celeron 700 system that I was using as a file server. I can relocate those files and use that it seems. Thanks again for the help, seems you guys saved my company 500 bucks :) Oh and to answer your question Budman, this would be a webpage for the outside world. We currently use a webhost, but our ISP already provides us with static IP addresses, so I figured why not cut some costs and just host it in-house. We have 640k upstream so I figured bandwidth wise we'd be just fine serving it from the inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 Just remember, hosting it from the inside on a 640K connection will KILL your Internet connection, depending on the amount of visitors you get. How much are you currently paying for hosting? You?re also going to have to worry about security with an internal web server. If you don?t have a good firewall, and you don't keep your system patched up.... you?re asking for some major problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted September 19, 2003 MVC Share Posted September 19, 2003 Like I said before, if there is NO specific reason why the server needs to be INSIDE your network. IE its a company public site - put it on an outside host. Oh so you'll save your company a $100 a year or so - but you will cost WAY more that in upkeep. Like fowen said - your asking for problems, hosting it on the inside. When there does not seem to be a reason for it. There are many very good hosts, that will cost you less than $100 a year to host your company site. With FULL phone support if something wrong, very reliable uptime, etc.. etc.. Let them worry about patches and security, etc.. Once you put that box in your network - if it is compromised, your whole network is at risk. The less outside exposure your network has - the better! As to the bandwith issue - the up and down is still one pipe. Even if you feel that 640K up is more than enough to handle the traffic to your site, any traffic going up, is less available for your users down. Unless you have a REALLY GOOD reason why the server needs to reside on your network - your only costing your company money by hosting it. Even if you have a machine available. There is MUCH more to be considered than just hardware cost, etc.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clonk Posted September 19, 2003 Author Share Posted September 19, 2003 Well Fowen and Budman, you make some very good points. You are right, the savings of hosting from the inside would be minimal, 240 dollars to be exact, which is a small price to pay for security. I wanted to host it inside to have more control over the server and to get some experience with running and maintaining a webserver, but I guess that is something better done on my own time and dollar. After hearing you guy's advice I do believe I will follow it and just keep our external host. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted September 19, 2003 Share Posted September 19, 2003 Getting experience is very good.....do you have high speed internet at home? What I have done is set up a web server using my Cox High speed connection to play around with, and learn more about managing web servers. I use Dyn-Dns.org to manage my dynamic IP address. I don?t host a huge site or anything, it is just someway for me to learn more about the technology. If you are looking at learning, I think this would be the best way to do it. I also have a dedicated server hosted elsewhere, but that is a completely different topic. If you want to cut some cost for your company, and want to keep great service, let me know. I think I would be able to hook you up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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