The €250 build!

hare05

I'm considering building a small server for home use, and decided to spend around €250 on it.

I have a spare DVD drive lying about, so no need for one in the list, no plans to overclock (but you never know), and i have more winXP / Server2003/8 / Ubuntu cds than I can count, so no need for OS.
This is what I came up with (Feel free to flame the hell out of me if it looks wrong, it's the only way I learn ^^):

All parts from Pixmania, delivery not a factor in the final price

CPU €54.90
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3154072/art/amd/athlon-ii-x2-245-2-9-ghz.html

MOBO €64.90
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3707611/art/msi/785gm-e51-socket-am3-chip.html

RAM €42.38 (Total)
Two of these
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/2629910/art/pny/1-gb-premium-ddr3-1333-pc.html

CASE €29.90
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3484044/art/cooler-master/elite-331-pc-tower-case.html

HDD €41.00
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/2731285/art/seagate/barracuda-7200-12-hard-dr.html#

PSU €31.90
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3511732/art/cooler-master/elite-power-400w-pc-power.html

Total cost: €265

Any ideas lads?

AlmightyCushion

What is it you are planning to use the server for? If it's just going to be a file server then just find some old piece of **** and use that.

hare05

It's gonna be a file server, but I see no point in it being solely that.

I want to mess around with a few operating systems and possibly run some VMs on it too. Also I want to keep my college work (Programming, etc) separate from the family PC, as my brother has a habit of corrupting boot sectors every time he touches a keyboard.

So having all shared the files accessible from the new PC (avoiding little brother probs), and keeping the rest of it for Virtualbox, etc, would be ideal. It also means I could try Linux long term on a pc that's actually worth a damn ^^

Blazer

2 gigs of ram...forget about VM then....you need 4gb at least...you could run one but it's not worth it...up it to 4gb..dirt cheap anyway
on my laptop I run a couple of VMs and I've 16gb in that....

hare05

Suppose I could.

That would raise it to around 300...

Seen any good deals on a 4Gb set? (Preferably 1333 or 1600. On that note, what real difference do the CL7 / CL8 / CL9 timings make anyway? Probably not something to worry about too much in a budget as low as this ^^)

slowlydownwards

13eur extra for http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/r/corsair-cx-400 ??