While most businesses can rely on a simple Windows PC to run a server, there are times where the demand goes beyond what a consumer product can offer.? This usually happens as a business becomes more integrated into new technologies to make things easier on everyone.? Adapting to new technologies has helped many businesses run more efficiently and spend less money in the end doing things that would commonly take an assistant to handle.? Having a direction regarding what to look for and different options to go about creating a server helps get things going without the problems that can arise later.
There are two types of processors when it comes to creating a server: ones with high-end server grade processors and the consumer goods that are available in home PC computers.? Although high-end server gear is preferred in any setup, the processing power is often far too much compared to a consumer processor in terms of pricing.? The main thing to do to determine if the extra expense is worth it is to see if the computer will run a Linux or other specialized operating system.? If Windows is the best fit for the server OS then consumer goods are often excellent to use.? The reason for this is specialized server software is typically much more optimized to specific high-end software to pull as much power out of it as possible.? When going with either, it is best to always make sure all the official drivers are installed along with being a 64-bit or higher version of the operating system.
Another thing that server hardware allows is high-end flexibility to adapt to ever-changing needs.? Motherboards that support server hardware are often created to support a high number of hard drives and RAM to keep up with the high demand of servers that some of these systems have to meet.? A good example is setting up RAID for hard drives.? RAID is a method of setting up two identical hard drives to either significantly speed up the read and write access to it or increase the read while mirroring the information for protection in case one hard drive dies.? Server hardware can run many of these setups within a single system while a home desktop motherboard will usually only be able to run two or three pairs max.
Server hardware also allows for specialized high speed connections that can be changed out as the need changes.? This allows any Cisco compatible SFP module to be changed out; for instance, if an Ethernet cable needs to be used, a Cisco compatible GLC T module can be installed where a fiber optic one was before.? Additionally, the overall speed of the motherboard’s chipset is often extremely high to meet a server’s needs when it is stressed to its maximum potential.
