Greatest Deal IN MY LIFE!!!

[lilhermiejobo]

Hey dudes!!!
I'm all excited and wanted to share with you that I am the prowd inheritant of a FREE HP ProLiant ML350 G4 Server Tower. Its only a couple years old and the business that it came from has upgraded their networking system leaving this beast to sit in the shed for months.

It has 2 CPU sockets, one of which is already running an Intel Xeon 3.2Ghz and I've been browsing online already for a second. I've managed to find a couple on ebay for under 50 bucks which doesn't suck.
It came preloaded with 3gb ram, a dual layer cd/dvd burner and dual 73gb hot-plug scsi drives @ 10k rpm.
2 pci-e and 4 pci-x bays in the rear and of course the standard onboard gigabyt network adapter.
Its nearly tax time here in Oz and I was planning on purchasing/building a quadcore system with my return but now I can totally focus on music gear!!!

I'm weighing a couple options now:
1) upgrade to 4gb ram MAX and use 32 bit win xp + DAW
OR
2) upgrade to the full 8gb ram and upgrade to 64 bit and possibly new OS platform as well as DAW setup.

I know upgrading everything to 64 bit is a bigger hassle but I'm feeling a bit power hungry and the idea of running dual Xeon cpu with 8gb ram gives me an intergalactic-size chubby.

What would you guys recommend?

 

[Mutant]

64 bit OS = incompatibilities with many nice plugins

 

[lilhermiejobo]

I was afraid someone would say that.

 

[Bekanor]

I don't see why it wouldn't be a great recording machine as is.


If you want to go to town, go for 64 bit and 8gb of ram, it won't be long before everything is 64bit compatible anyway, unless of course you find some incompatibilities with plugins that are mission critical.

 

[JBroll]

Start with 4GB, and if you need the extra RAM (and software compatibility is an issue) you can upgrade - I wouldn't throw too much money at any computing system because they're all inevitably going obsolete. Gear that lasts is better than gear that gives your inner computer geek a massive woody but has the longevity of the average housefly.

Jeff

 

[Bekanor]

Start with 4GB, and if you need the extra RAM (and software compatibility is an issue) you can upgrade - I wouldn't throw too much money at any computing system because they're all inevitably going obsolete. Gear that lasts is better than gear that gives your inner computer geek a massive woody but has the longevity of the average housefly.

Jeff

How does a 64bit system have less longevity than a 32bit system given that the 32 bit is less upgradeable RAM wise and will eventually be phased out entirely?

I'm not trying to be a dick, you're totally right about the bewildering rate at which new PCs become old PCs but given that phenomenon it seems counter productive to not at least give yourself a little room for future expansion. Especially since it's not all that expensive to do.

 

[JBroll]

I would not even attempt to imply that a 64-bit system has less longevity. I run a 64-bit OS on my machines... granted, that's because the 'heavy loads' I handle with the computer (computational mathematics) require more RAM and my platform handles 64-bit very gracefully, but hopefully my own use of x86-64 removes any doubt about my belief in the (at least theoretical) advantages.

I was warning primarily against upgrading too much too soon - that 4GB of RAM will be much cheaper down the road, so surviving without it will be significantly cheaper, and it's entirely possible that RAM won't be a bottleneck at all. He has 64-bit capability - *when he needs it*. For now, it's not always the wisest move because some software developers are stunningly incompetent or woefully ignorant as far as future-proofing goes, so my recommendation was on the grounds of 'if you don't need it, don't bother - wait until you do need it, when hopefully it will be cheaper' and not on any assumption on the short life of 64-bit. Computers are a great way to waste a metric fuckton of money that could be going to gear that isn't guaranteed to become obsolete by the time you return from the john, so I always advise to get only what gives good value and does what's necessary rather than going top-of-the-line unnecessarily.

Jeff

 

[Bekanor]

Ah gotcha. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I can't say that my experience with 64 bit processing has been all that great (I have 4gb of RAM and Vista uses half of it to do nothing) but that has more to do with my operating system of circumstance rather than the processing architecture itself. I'm hoping the Windows 7 RC I'm going to install tomorrow will have better results.

 

[JBroll]

If I still used Windows I'd probably not be optimistic about anything - XP64 was a rape-wrapped-nightmare, and I completely gave up on 64-bit Windows after a few hours of finding exactly how many ways an audio driver could fail to work.

Although I don't want to see 64-bit adoption stunted (looking at Windows 95 and 98, it's amazing how fucked something can be when klugey 'compatibility layers' are used instead of proper planning and design), I also don't like that everyone automatically buys the fanciest shit they can afford just for the sake of flashy garbage designed to justify buying fancy hardware. I have not yet run into many 'casual users' who need even a dual-core machine with more than 1G of RAM - 'software developers who are so incredibly enthusiastic about hogging resources for the sake of hogging resources that they'll rewrite GUIs to simulate four-dimensional hyperblarghohedra' are far more to blame for the intolerable mess that is modern computer shopping than 'email, Internet browsing, and video-watching requirements', so if 64-bit doesn't give advantages and takes significant extra work I'd say to toss it out the window.

Jeff

 

[noarin]

64 bit OS = incompatibilities with many nice plugins

Like all the waves plugins? I have that problem.

 

[Bekanor]

I'm in too deep to not use windows at this point.

I've had Ubuntu on a laptop and really wasn't a fan, free everything was cool but not cool enough unfortunately.

 

[lilhermiejobo]

When I first joined this forum I was using a POS system I slapped together out of spare parts for the sake of having something to record with:
P3 733Mhz 512mb ram 10gb master 10gb slave. The further I got into audio recording, the more power I've needed out of a DAW inevitably leading me to slapping even bigger and faster POS.
Up until the point of actually spending money on my last server (I paid 50 bucks and traded some old baseball cards) with: dual P3 733mhz 1gb ram 40gb master 80gb slave + 2 hot plug scsi 10gb drives. I managed to upgrade the processors to 1ghz versions and added another gb of ram for around 100 bucks after scouring the internet for days.
I'm not so much worried about spending a little money considering I didn't have to pay anything for this system to being with. A bit of a problem I've run into is that the mobo only supports 1 IDE connection giving me a MAX of 2 IDE drives. It already has a dvd drive installed and I'd prefer to keep that while at the same time installing a master and slave drive as usual. I'm not too familiar with array controllers so I'll have to do a bit of reading but at the moment the dual 72.8gb scsi hot-plug drives only show up as 1 drive. There are 4 drive bays in front and I'm guessing one option at the moment would be to install the hardware and run both slave and master drives but then when I want to burn something or watch a dvd on my system, I'd have to power down and connect the dvd drive.
Anyone run into similar problems?

 

[Bekanor]

You could always buy a PCI SATA card, keep the SCSI (I'm assuming it's running in some format of RAID if the 2 are only showing up as one drive) setup to just have windows on and not worry about IDE drives at all.

 

[dani]

you can have the best of both worlds, you know.

32bit OS's have been capable of handling more than 4gb for a long time, in the form of PAE (physical address extensions). with this, 32bit OS's can address upto 64gb of ram. every version of windows since 2000 has PAE extensions.

bleat bleat, i hear everyone crying out already "but we all know windows only supports 4gb". first off, it's 3 and a bit gb (not 4), and second of all, MS took away this functionality in XP SP1. yes, you read that right. if you had more than 4gb of RAM when you had XP, then update to SP1, you were in for a nasty suprise - you'd lose everything above that 3gb and a bit mark!

however, they were nice, and left PAE in server editions of windows. server editions can cope with upto 8gb, i think (it's an arbitrary limit - MS could bump this upto 64gb at the flick of a compile time switch).

if you can get a hold of a copy of windows server 2003 datacenter, then it'll take upto 64gb of ram for you.

*however*, you're still limited on a per-process basis, to 2gb. this is where something like jbridge comes in. each instance spawns another process, which you run a plugin in, so each plugin has a limit of 2gb. more than enough.

back to the topic at hand, i was under the impression you needed an *identical* CPU for dualing them up like that? it's unlikely that a CPU bought off ebay will be an exact match!

thanks,

 

[lilhermiejobo]

Ideally, I was hoping to dull a complete format of the scsi drives and seperate them into individual partitions on the hardware list to use as storage rather than booting. Mainly because I'd rather take full advantage of having 2x 72.8gb storage drives while keeping my hdd with windows and my recording software/plugs/patches/etc already installed. I'd just do a re-install of windows xp pro over the existing on the master drive acting as an update for system drivers and etc that the new server requires without erasing the existing partition.
I'll look into a PCI adapter card to run extra IDE drives from. I dont have SATA drives so hopefully I could find a PATA version.
I'm second guessing installing win xp pro over the existing OS because it already has Windows Business Server 2003 installed on the scsi drives.
Lastly, yes I need an identical CPU for running dual and I've double checked what I have with the listing I found on ebay and they are indeed identical.
I've been pretty lucky when it comes to finding good deals on electronics for the last few years now that I think of it. Odd.

 

[dani]

i'm not sure on the limitations of business server, i had a table somewhere, i'll see if i can find it.

and sorry, i mis-read your first post, i thought it had one CPU and was awaiting another. fair do!

you should defo go for the 8gb option

thanks,

EDIT: MS made a nice table here for us. i'm assuming server 2k3, of course

seems like enterprise or datacenter is what you're after..

 

[lilhermiejobo]

Thank you VERY much for the info!!! Thats quite appealing I must say. Although I dont already have SATA drives, if I were to pick up a PCIe SATA card and a couple SATA drives that might take care of my internal storage woes.
Windows Small Business Server 2003 is what the machine currently runs which is limited to 4gb just the same as win xp pro (which I'm already extremely familiar with and seems the better option avoid uncessary head phuckery). I think I could manage just fine on 4gb ram even though the 8gb option is VERY attractive. I'd like to spend as little money as possible on this project so that after tax season I can focus more moolah on gear. Browsing this forum is like stuffing your face with 4 bean caserole on a daily basis = HEAPS of G.A.S.
Right,
So as it stands, the plan of attack is as follows: identical cpu off ebay, an extra Gb of RAM, PCIe SATA card, 1 (or 2) SATA drives and high-end cooling heatsink/fan for "potential (though unlikely) overclocking".

dcdanman, sorry for the confusion, I do already have a CPU in the server. I was browsing on Ebay and found an identical CPU on the cheap. I was skeptical at first, too, but after some investigation it turns out they ARE the same, which doesn't suck.
How would one go about finding Enterprise or DataCenter for purchase? I've only ever seen the basics: 95, 98, 2000-me, xp and vista.

 

[dani]

they appear from time to time on ebay, if you don't want to pay the full MS price (which is way OTT, by the way).

you have another option, you can pick up 120 day trials of enterprise edition direct from MS, for free. yea, it makes you buy it afterward, but if something were to happen to the countdown timer, you'd have a completely full version of enterprise edition.. just saying.

if you go the ebay route, make sure what you're buying is legit. there are a lot of fakes out there.

thanks,

 

[MetallyGuitarded]

I would not even attempt to imply that a 64-bit system has less longevity. I run a 64-bit OS on my machines... granted, that's because the 'heavy loads' I handle with the computer (computational mathematics) require more RAM and my platform handles 64-bit very gracefully, but hopefully my own use of x86-64 removes any doubt about my belief in the (at least theoretical) advantages.

I was warning primarily against upgrading too much too soon - that 4GB of RAM will be much cheaper down the road, so surviving without it will be significantly cheaper, and it's entirely possible that RAM won't be a bottleneck at all. He has 64-bit capability - *when he needs it*. For now, it's not always the wisest move because some software developers are stunningly incompetent or woefully ignorant as far as future-proofing goes, so my recommendation was on the grounds of 'if you don't need it, don't bother - wait until you do need it, when hopefully it will be cheaper' and not on any assumption on the short life of 64-bit. Computers are a great way to waste a metric fuckton of money that could be going to gear that isn't guaranteed to become obsolete by the time you return from the john, so I always advise to get only what gives good value and does what's necessary rather than going top-of-the-line unnecessarily.

Jeff

I'd go dual CPU, especially if it's only about $50, format that array and install the OS/DAW on that. Get the SATA card and some big/cheap drives to use for 'storage'. That pair of SCSI drives is about as fast as drives get short of Solid State. If you can't load your DAW on Server 2003 ( anyone here ever tried it?? ) You can run that off of the SATA drives I suspect.

I agree with Broll on the start with 4GB of RAM thing. I'll also throw this in there....

I worked with Network Engineers and Designers for about 5 years, mostly from a service/support angle and HP/Compaq stuff USUALLY has very specific requirements for RAM. Things like registered/ECC, etc that most home users never encounter is crucial. Just make sure you check the server specs and get the right kind. As I recall the server wont even POST if you get the wrong kind. You can buy cheap RAM for it, just make sure it's the right kind, added in pairs if required, etc. We always used HP/Compaq RAM on anything in warranty and that stuff was about 4 times the cost of 3rd party RAM with the same specs. We used plenty of cheap 3rd party RAM on out of warranty servers that worked fine too.

I may have a copy of the server OS's you want. The Engineers I worked with all had copies of most Microsoft shit in their bags for the inevitable downed server, IT guy is in Alaska and no one knows where the CDs are to re-install the OS on the replacement drives kinda situation. IM me later on with which you want. I know I have Server 2003 but whether I have Enterprise or Datacenter I'll have to check.


BTW - Great Score!!!

 

[JBroll]

Having recently finished putting together a dual Xeon 5500 system with hilarious results, I'm hesitant to recommend dual CPUs for anyone who doesn't love obscure architectures a bit too much.

The only person coming close to a happy Windows user that I know personally (who actually helped pull the parts together for that Xeon system together) likes Server 2008 quite a bit, but I've never tried it.

Jeff