Buying A Server, What To Get?

[lazyfortress]

So the server I'm buying comes with a DRAC card.  Does CentOS support the DRAC, or do I need windows server 2008?

[Electronics Wizardy]

33 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

So the server I'm buying comes with a DRAC card.  Does CentOS support the DRAC, or do I need windows server 2008?

The drac doesn't care about the os. Think of it as anouther unit that can turn the system on or off and view the screen. It also has its own network connection. 

[Pixel5]

12 hours ago, lazyfortress said:

-___-  What do you guys do with servers then?  

 

I want a server so I can modify it and do different things with it.  I'm gonna unplug 2 to 3 times a week.  I may unplug it when the day ends.  I'm not gonna keep it running every single day for the whole year.  It's just something I've always wanted to have for the past 2 years.  I want to be able to experiment.

Servers are a tool to solve a problem, they are the solution for people that need a machine running 24/7 doing things and being available.

You are currently buying a solution but you dont have a problem to solve with it.

 

If you want something to tinker with and dont have the intention to run in all the time anyways you might be better served with a raspberry pi 3 which will take up significantly less space, use less power and still have everything you need to tinker around with, not to mention that its passive cooled so no jet engine cooling on it.

 

once you got this up and running and you actually found a good use for it you can take some money to buy something with the power for whatever you want to do with it.

 

Chances are you will play with the server for a few weeks until it gets boring and becomes a paperweight, the raspberry pi has some resale value at least while the old servers are something nobody really would buy from private persons.

[Electronics Wizardy]

26 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

SNIP

So I was basically in that same spot about 4 years ago. Bought a 2950 for about 250 ish. Set it up played with it. Now i have a full rack and have gotten a job working as a datacenter tech. If you want to work with servers, its fairly cheap and fun to play with. You have to want to do it though. 

 

Compared to a pi, Id personally recommend to say away and run linux in a vm, your not getting that much more from a pi, but depends on what your doing with it. My current mentality is visualize all the things.. You do get some advantages with a used server if you want to play with server stuff, like offical support for esxi, xenserver, and windows server, and virtuaztion. 

[lazyfortress]

I ordered the 1950 yesterday.  It should arrive on or after Christmas.  My only problem now is how to connect it to the network.  I have a spare router, but how do I connect that router to the main router in my house?  It's an older netgear router.  If I make it a range extender and hook up my server to the ethernet port on the router, will my server be online?

 

And I already have a Raspberry Pi A+.

[Phate.exe]

On 12/17/2016 at 2:40 PM, Inrix said:

I don't recommend a 1U or that server, its pretty shitty for just a nas and as @MarieKirya just said its going to sound horrendously loud. Make a cheap desktop with a i5 or i3 and buy some hdds, it will work MUCH better for you and give you a bit more upgradability and flexibility than any rack server would.

 

Agreed, rackmount stuff is cool in a nerdy way, but unless you're going to populate the other racks there's really not much of a use-case for a home setup.

 

For a home server, something like the Lenovo Thinkserver (MintyFreshMedia in my sig) that I got for $100 works perfectly.  Dell and HP (and probably everyone else that's in the server game) also make fairly equivalent products.  It's very quiet, the i3-3220 (dual core, 4 thread) has more than enough oomph for a couple of 1080p Plex media transcodes, it uses "normal" desktop PC parts and hardware.  Didn't come with any drives, so I put a 120gb Trion150 SSD as a boot disk, and it currently has two refurbished 2TB Hitachi Ultrastars installed for mass-storage (I have a third Ultrastar handy for if I decide I need more storage as I move my entire media collection to higher resolution).  Aside from the fact it says "server" on the front, it pretty much just looks like any old regular workstation machine - A compact mid-tower.

 

It serves primarily as a Plex server and general NAS, but I also use it whenever I feel like messing around in a linux environment (which is why it runs desktop Linux Mint).

[Electronics Wizardy]

21 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

I ordered the 1950 yesterday.  It should arrive on or after Christmas.  My only problem now is how to connect it to the network.  I have a spare router, but how do I connect that router to the main router in my house?  It's an older netgear router.  If I make it a range extender and hook up my server to the ethernet port on the router, will my server be online?

 

And I already have a Raspberry Pi A+.

Can you just plug in wired to the server from the router or switch?

 

If nost, you can normally use a old router to extend a network, try plugging it in, and then pluging a computer into the wired lan ports and seeing if in settings there is a option for a wireless bridge or something like that.

[lazyfortress]

Will CentOS allow me to configure that netgear router to extend the network?  I'm gonna plug it in when I get my server.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, lazyfortress said:

Will CentOS allow me to configure that netgear router to extend the network?  I'm gonna plug it in when I get my server.

Id just plug the router into anouther laptop or desktop. Normally I don't install a gui on servers.

[lazyfortress]

Oh.  So when I do plug it in, will the router automatically be configured as a range extender?  And then could I just plug it in to the server?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, lazyfortress said:

Oh.  So when I do plug it in, will the router automatically be configured as a range extender?  And then could I just plug it in to the server?

Normally you have to configure it in the web interface, plug it into a laptop or desktop and do that.

 

Then plug the server in.

[lazyfortress]

So after I get it configured on a computer via ethernet, I can unplug it from the computer and place it in the server?  Sorry for all these questions.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, lazyfortress said:

So after I get it configured on a computer via ethernet, I can unplug it from the computer and place it in the server?  Sorry for all these questions.

should work, you might have to edit network config on the server

[lazyfortress]

Ok, I got my server.  It's plugged in and everything.  How do I install CentOS?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

Ok, I got my server.  It's plugged in and everything.  How do I install CentOS?

Download it here http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1611.iso

 

Put it on a usb stick with https://rufus.akeo.ie/

[lazyfortress]

 

Alright.  That black screen means no OS?

 

I'm on my mac by the way.  I'm gonna put CentOS on the USB via windows

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 hours ago, lazyfortress said:

I'm on my mac by the way.  I'm gonna put CentOS on the USB via windows

On a mac you can put it on the usb with dd in the terminal

 

8 hours ago, lazyfortress said:

Alright.  That black screen means no OS?

It is trying to boot from a hard drive, but fails, then trys to boot from both of the network ports, and fails.

[lazyfortress]

Ok,so that CentOS website is giving me multiple download links.  I chose one, and it's asking me to save it or open it.  Should I save it to my flash drive?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, lazyfortress said:

Ok,so that CentOS website is giving me multiple download links.  I chose one, and it's asking me to save it or open it.  Should I save it to my flash drive?

save it to you downloads folder, not usb

 

Use the minimal install one.

 

Use rufus to put it on a usb, you can't just put the iso on a usb drive and boot from it.

[lazyfortress]

Ok, so I downloaded rufus.  What options do I select?  MBR Partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI, FAT32, 4096 bytes are default.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

Ok, so I downloaded rufus.  What options do I select?  MBR Partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI, FAT32, 4096 bytes are default.

Select your usb at the top

 

On the third checkmark there is a cd icon. Click that and select the iso you downloaded. 

 

Don't touch anything else.

 

Hit start.

[lazyfortress]

Ok, so it took 12 minutes to download, and the bar is all green.  And below the bar says "READY".  So the OS didn't install?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

Ok, so it took 12 minutes to download, and the bar is all green.  And below the bar says "READY".  So the OS didn't install?

nope, its done.

put it from the server and chose it from the boot menu

[lazyfortress]

Ok, so I have the server booted up from the USB.  How do I connect it to network from my spare router?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, lazyfortress said:

Ok, so I have the server booted up from the USB.  How do I connect it to network from my spare router?

install the os now. you dont need a network connection yet.