ServeTheHome - Fun DIY Projects

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Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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I had an idea today. What if I sent 2-3 people $60-$100 via PayPal and they built the best home servers/ media centers they could. They would need to stick to the budget, and need to document their experiences and results for all of the forum members.

The end goal would be to then donate the machines to charity or something.

So...

  1. General thoughts/ reactions?
  2. What should be the evaluation criteria?
  3. Donate to charity? Keep?
  4. Frequency of the build offs? Monthly/ Quarterly?
  5. Would anyone be interested in being the guinea pig for this?

Fairly raw thought but wanted to gauge reaction.

Cheers,
Patrick

NOTE We will be starting Friday 12/21 if we get volunteers. Please see post #11 below for more information.
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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I like the Charity idea, possibly either give or auction off, possibly highest sale adds to over all winner

Will be interesting to decide on the criteria of the low budget home server.
But I'm pretty sure there are bargains to be had once you look closely.
 

RimBlock

Active Member
Sep 18, 2011
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Sorry, bit confused here.

Send people 60-100 USD and they have to build a server for no more than 60-100 USD ? or is it send them 60-100USD for participation and set a budget they have to build a server for and they use their own money to build, up to the budget limit.

The idea of build the best to a budget is good, it would just be the issue of funding.

I would imagine base rules like if the budget is for the items or items plus postage. I would imagine that it would be a predominantly US competition as the resale market is much larger unless the finished builds are sent to Patrick, graded on quality, build, general good looks ;) etc then benchmarked and sold by Patrick with the proceeds paying for the builds (receipts would be required) and any over going to charity. Of course it would still mean shipping for people outside the US of the final results would be pretty high cost for some like myself. What about parts obtained for free (old servers decommissioned etc given to a builder), how would that be valued ?.

Hmm, a number of bits to be worked out maybe but, on the whole, a nice idea for a competition. Any chance of sponsorship from a manufacturer ?. How about they provide a base kit and you have XXX to 'fill in the blanks' or upgrade it ?.

RB
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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<$100 is going to very tough
Just visited Newegg and assembled the very cheapest parts to make a computer:

$44.99 Rosewill RS-MI-01 BK Mini ITX Tower/ Desktop Computer Case with 250W 20+4Pin & 1SATA Connectors Power Supply
$59.99 TOSHIBA DT01ACA050 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$54.99 ASRock E35LM1 AMD E-240 APU AMD A50M Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
$8.99 AMD Entertainment Edition 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model AE32G1609U1

$168.98 not including any shipping.
Shipping anything to and from the US would eat up the entire budget, locally built machines would be the way to go.

The above did get me thinking that the computer should have no monitor (would break budget anyway) and probably ruling out HTPC
This would encourage good LAN, the essence of any good server.
 

RimBlock

Active Member
Sep 18, 2011
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Think the direction would be recycling EBay parts from previous generations but even so, outside of the US it would be pretty difficult, I would imagine. I know where I am there is very little available in EBay and not so much on the second hand markets.

RB
 

Mike

Member
May 29, 2012
482
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EU
How about cheap ARM-based stuff, a step up from a raspberry pi could be done for way under that. There are a bunch of Exynos based credit sized computers available. They are new and complete though, so not really a competition...
 

Patrick

Administrator
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Dec 21, 2010
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Competition will be to build the fastest web server/ best media server etc. If one path went ARM one went recycled IT then so be it.
 

tjmagneto

New Member
Dec 3, 2012
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California
This sounds a lot of fun but the budget will be extremely challenging. I'm sure that more than a few of us have used components in storage, so I'd like to know how using those parts would figure into the budget/total cost of the rig.
 

Patrick

Administrator
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Dec 21, 2010
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This sounds a lot of fun but the budget will be extremely challenging. I'm sure that more than a few of us have used components in storage, so I'd like to know how using those parts would figure into the budget/total cost of the rig.
Good point. Maybe budget needs to be upped a bit. On the other hand, here is a L5430 "barebones" (Maybe we can exclude chassis and PS) at $125 +30 ship. This dual L5420 full system is bidding on for $98 right now. Here is a $125 + 17 ship dual L5420 4GB Supermicro barebones. That one has 5 avail so he might go for it.

That's using mid-2008 era hardware.

So I think a big portion of this will be the "hunt".
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Updated thoughts:

  • Budget raised to $125 per build. Gift recipients must disclose where they purchased items from. E.g. ebay, craigslist, forums etc.
  • Each user can use the following in an unlimited category, but must disclose what they use:
    • One USB drive (Open to make this up to two)
    • Any cabling e.g. SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE cables, Cat 5/ 6 Ethernet, power cables
    • Any (or no) chassis
    • Any miscellaneous chassis hardware, e.g. power switches, LEDs
    • External power brick if required by solution
    • Any keyboard, monitor, mouse
    • Any drive used for installation media e.g. floppy drive or CD ROM drive
  • Note: Some of the above items, e.g. SATA cables, if I have extra I can donate those too
  • Challenge participants will have 7 days to make their purchases and up to two additional days to document what they purchased. We want to know how much you spent and what you picked.
  • Since we are doing this on a budget, users will have up to 14 days to get their systems working and an additional two days to document what they did. Expectation is that ship times may take awhile in this price range.

I have a few thoughts for how we will do the first one:
  • We are going to pick a standard test setup.
    • Must have Linux Apache MySQL PHP installed on the server.
    • User will be expected to be able to set this up (should be VERY easy for anyone that would want to participate)
  • Tests that we will use (open to add):
    • Apache Bench ("ab") test for concurrent users and latency of a given server.
    • Unix Bench
  • I think we need pictures of the build either in progress or post setup. Style points.
  • Users will have four weeks to submit a writeup of the above results and what charity the build has been donated to
  • My holiday gift to two participants so they can do their charity builds goes out Friday, December 21 via PayPal. That way funding via PP balance can be part of negotiations.
  • More than happy to have folks start their own threads on the builds in the event they want to "crowd source" finding a deal or want to see what they can get on the forum etc.
  • Expectation is that this is not a contest or competition, just a fun activity to scour for a deal then build a web server for charities.

If this works well, maybe we will incorporate something interesting, like I provide "secret ingredients" like an Infiniband card, PCI NIC or etc to participants. Will also see if I can cut hosting costs to free up more cash for future builds. I can see this going in a lot of directions.

As for how I will pick gift recipients... good question. I think my first criteria is that I need one or two people willing to do the experiment outlined above. Would like to know what charity of course. Please post below if you are interested in trying this. Remember, used IT can be a PITA so this may not be as easy as purchasing something from the local store and turning it on. If we have more than 2 folks that want to do this, I will likely pick two people to get the gift. If there are more than two, I would ask those not selected to support the first two pioneers and remember that my goal is to do this again in Q1'2013 at which time it will likely be better.

Comments or suggestions to the above? Otherwise, please post if interested.
 

Jeggs101

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2010
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Bad timing. Maybe next time. Could also do best chassis, best raid setup for some dollar amount.
 

Patrick

Administrator
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Dec 21, 2010
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I think for this one, they need to be purchased. Now... if one were to make a FS post on the forums with key parts for those making the builds... no reason that could not be a valid source.

I may have been thinking the same thing. :)

Then again, no commits yet.
 

tjmagneto

New Member
Dec 3, 2012
2
0
1
California
Maybe after the first of the year as I have a lot of stuff going on.

I'm also worried about getting the wrong stuff shipped to me. The last time I shipped computer parts around Christmas the recipient opened the box only to find a pillow. I wonder if the person who got the motherboard knew what it was. :confused:
 

RimBlock

Active Member
Sep 18, 2011
837
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Singapore
I think for this one, they need to be purchased. Now... if one were to make a FS post on the forums with key parts for those making the builds... no reason that could not be a valid source.

I may have been thinking the same thing. :)

Then again, no commits yet.
Presumably you cannot advertise your own items and then buy them from yourself as 'special discount rates - $1 firesale everything must go' type pricing.

Also, I would think all-in-one solutions would be out so no just buying ready made old Dell / HP / other desktops, installing the software and away you go ?. Doing that sort of defeats the 'build' part :D.

So propose, can buy from the forum but not from yourself or any company you may own. No ready built machines.

Exchange rate is pretty bad for this at the moment (good for my buying from the US though). Shipping is another big cost.

RB
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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I think the 'Geeks etiquette' applies, in the name of fun and sportmans ship I'm sure we can all play fair.

Items we have lying around and used in the build should be valued at ebay or what ever value added to the build cost.
No use buying something you may already have ?
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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Maybe after the first of the year as I have a lot of stuff going on.

I'm also worried about getting the wrong stuff shipped to me. The last time I shipped computer parts around Christmas the recipient opened the box only to find a pillow. I wonder if the person who got the motherboard knew what it was. :confused:
Great point. Will push this to 12/21 gift date. Folks can search and order over the Christmas to New Year's week. Starting first/ second week in Jan to build.