Xserve or no?

R

Roadie

Registered
I have some questions setting up a web server. Actually, its more about setting up a server. My boss and I are thinking about buying a dedicated server. We are totally new to this whole idea so I was wondering if people could give me some info or point me in the right direction.

Firs I checked out Xserve, that seemed good, but then I noticed you can install OS X server on a regular G4. I dont think we would need a humungous amout of space. What are the pros/cons of each?

Also, what other considerations should I be making?

Thanks,

Rich
 
G4
Pros: Price. Quality.
Cons: Stability (it's still a regular ol' Mac). Power.

Xserve
Pros: Stability. Quality. Troubleshooting. Low profile.
Cons: Price.

If you have the money, and you want a machine that will not crash and will be able to be easily troubleshot(?), then go with the Xserve. If money is a concern or you don't need the power and... crap, they're both good choices! It mainly comes down to price.
 
The Xserve is much more suited as a server. Remember it comes with a RAID controller and a Mac OS X Server license, and most of its parts are hot-swappable.
I'd probably wait a while and see if new models are released at the apple expo in september, though.
 
I'm wondering if I really need all that power though, or if its overkill for just a web server. Well it would be a file server for a couplle fo computers too...
 
Originally posted by Roadie
I'm wondering if I really need all that power though, or if its overkill for just a web server. Well it would be a file server for a couplle fo computers too...
Click to expand...

Well, how many visitors does your site have? I assume the server isn't going to act as a main storage unit for the company? Unless you're on a gigabit fiber optic connection, even the oldest G4 is overkill. The best idea if you don't need the fastest thing available, is probably getting two ~400 MHz G4s and place them on different internet connections - it's important to have a backbone server. Reliability usually comes before speed :)
 
so older g4's are ok to use as web/file servers? And yea I was thinking that the server would be the main file server...

We would probably be hosting a number of sites, but I dont think any of them would be anything super-high traffic.

What do you mean place them on two internet connections? And what kind of internet connection would we need (like can we use dsl, or do we have to get a T1 or something)? Man I don't know anything about this stuff...
 
Xserve + Xraid = Major overkill for your purposes...

It sounds like you could do well with a couple iMacs, much less G4's. Set up your computers on a broadband Internet connection—you want a dedicated connection so you get good speed and no disconnects—and set up your software. I think what KSV is getting at is that having 2 computers on 2 different lines would be backup redundancy, meaning if one computer goes down or gets clogged, you have a backup to take the load off.

You could even use one computer as the server and the other as the storage, accessing it through the server computer. I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by one as the server and one as the storeage? do you mean my company's files on one computer and the web sites files on another?
 
Well, maybe it would be best to just get an old G4 as a file server and let a professional company do the web hosting ;)
 
Okay, then start reading books ;)
I strongly recommend you to have a web hosting company do the internet part - or have a professional set up and maintain the server. I'm pretty sure don't want to do any mistakes and potentially expose your company's files to the whole internet ;)
 
well thats what we are trying to get away from, the whole web hosting company deal.

So it sounds like having one computer for a file server and one for a web server is the way to go. What about the os x/os x server deal? Will we need to get that?

Whats the best way to back up the wbe server in case it goes down?
 
An external RAID array. Barring that, DAT tape drives.

If you can get OS X Server at reasonable cost and it's viable to do so, try it out and see if it will work for what you want to do. If it's something simple, you could probably just share a web site from your User account.
 
You could even use one computer as the server and the other as the storage, accessing it through the server computer
Click to expand...

arden, can you give me some more info on this?

thanks to both of you by the way for helping me out.
 
Originally posted by arden
I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there.
Click to expand...
Probably not... ;)

I'd think you could just turn on Web Sharing and share your website from a plain old, not even new G4, and assign a domain name to it. Then you'd be all set. Of course, you'd want some sort of broadband, but that's natural for sharing websites.
 
hmm..well, we were looking to host a bunch of web sites, not just our own. I'll to do some more researchin...
 
High traffic websites or small operations? If you're looking at the next eBay, Amazon and CNN, then you definitely need an Xserve farm. But if you just want something minor with a few hundred visitors, then a G4 will suit you fine.
 
yeah i think we are looking at the second scenario, smaller sites with a few hundred visitors...some small time ecommerce too probably.
 
In that case, use an OS X-capable computer (doesn't even have to be a new G4, it could be an old beige G3 like what I'm using now) to host your websites. Put them in the Sites folder of your User account, and enable web sharing for this site.
 
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