[_spun]

So I've been thinking about building a server. Right now I have a linux server running off a very old desktop that I host a few websites and store a bunch of files. Its only got a 200GB hard drive. I'd like to upgrade to a something from this decade. And I've got about 800GB of data that I'd like to put on there, and set up RAID configuration.


Server motherboards are generally more expensive. So whats the difference?

I've also got a secondary computer, DDR2 MoBo, 8GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, Nvidia 550Ti. I was thinking about using that as my Windows machine, primarily for Adobe products and music composition. Maybe use that as a dedicated server? Or maybe just buy more IDE hard drives. It runs fine. Sorry I think this post is a little frazzled with details.

[tango 51]

Server motherboards usually have two sockets, and have a large number of DIMM slots per socket. You usually have add on slots built for networking and RAID cards. The CPUs are generally built more for durability and longevity rather than speed. The drives for servers are usually 10k or 15k RPM drives that run o SCISI and SAS rather than SATA.

[JavaMachine]

The motherboards also use a different stand-off layout so will not fit in most standard ATX cases. The different layout is to allow the boards to fit into trays/computation racks. I'm pretty sure they also have an interconnect feature and are layed out to be helium/nitrogen cooled.

On newer boards you will find extra PCI-E slots for GPUs.

[_spun]

Thanks for the response guys. Appreciated!