I need to buy a server to host our source code repository as well as performing "nightly builds", processing of assets etc. I'd value if the computer is silent and has a low power consumption, and finally it should have a low cost, preferably below $400, but if that's impossible or means too much sacrifices in performance, I'll probably be prepared to go up to maybe $700 in price (but very reluctantly!). What sort of hardware would you recommend for my needs?

It depends on how fast you want your builds to run. Unless your project is huge, you'll probably be ok with a fairly cheap PC. Look into AMD processors coupled with a motherboard with an integrated video card. If you limit yourself to something like 2 GB DDR2 ram, you can easily get your RAM/CPU/Mobo for under $200.

Edit:
I'd like to note that there are plenty of places that offer source-control for your code, and you can always set up instances of continuous/nightly builds to run on your local machine. It may be best to do that until you know exactly what you need (or if you need a dedicated machine to begin with). I have no idea how large your project is, or exactly what kind of things (asset processing, etc) you are going to do on this.

Well the primary purpose is code repository hosting. Offloading builds and having a resource available for all sorts of cool background calculations is a bonus, but shouldn't be too restricted either. The size of our code base will grow to pretty much professional game sizes in the coming year.

Ok, here's what I've thought up so far:
- CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240 2.8GHZ, socket AM3
- HD: Hitachi deskstar 7K1000.B, 320GB, SATA/300, 24.5dB
- MOBO: Asus M4N78 PRO, chipset GEFORCE 8300, AM3, ATX
- RAM: Kingston DDR2 2GB, 667MHZ
= approx $240
Missing: power supply, box, (additional cooling)

What do you think of this setup?
- Is the CPU a bad choice noise level-wise (will it have additional fans etc)?
- Is the 24.5dB HD as good as you can get, or can it be pushed much enough further to warrant choosing another HD? Is the HD size appropriate (this is my first time hosting a repository so I'm not entirely sure how big a versioning system costs space-wise compared to a single version - it can't be code size times number of versions since it stores data as diffs, but what factor should I expect)?
- What box and power supply to choose?

Quote: Well the primary purpose is code repository hosting.

If you're going to use it as a repository I would suggest getting something with a RAID-card and 2x HD, just as an insurance if something crashes.

"I'm not entirely sure how big a versioning system costs space-wise compared to a single version"

I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can get dirt cheap 1/2Tb disks. That's loads -- it's easily six billion lines of code. Just as a comparison, Windows and Linux are both of the orders of tens-of-millions of lines of code.

The minute you start rendering movies, you'll have a storage problem but code won't cause a problem.


One thing I might suggest is looking at hosted systems. You get (basically) a VM which can be accessed over the internet. You can then work from anywhere, your source is off-site and backed up, has a UPS, you don't have to worry about noise, heat, maintenance...

We have several 'machines' set up like this and the total rentals (including amazing amounts of bandwidth) are running a few hundred dollars a year. When we needed more CPU power a year back, they simply packed up our VM, moved it to a faster physical system and set it running again...

@Katie: Not sure if a hosted repository is what I want, I'd like to play around a little with heavy computations, static code analysis tools to be run during nightly builds, and so on. Gives more freedom to have a server of my own, and it's also fun.

@trasseltass: What needs to change in order to get a RAID system up? I suppose most Mobos can handle the basic versions of RAID, so all that is needed is to buy one or more extra disks. I've heard that the more complex types of RAID were preferred over simple mirroring these days. Which type of RAID is preferrable?

Are you sure you want RAID?

You might be better of using a backup program which backs up the hard drive every day or so. With RAID if there's a error or someone accidentally deletes the entire repo etc then the exact same thing happens to the other hard drive.

Quote: Original post by all_names_taken
@trasseltass: What needs to change in order to get a RAID system up? I suppose most Mobos can handle the basic versions of RAID, so all that is needed is to buy one or more extra disks. I've heard that the more complex types of RAID were preferred over simple mirroring these days. Which type of RAID is preferrable?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think there used to be reasons to choose "hardware RAID", like a separate PCI controller, over the built-in "software RAID" that comes with mobo's.

However, as Weetbix wrote, if your budget is limited you might want to consider manually backing up the data instead, maybe to an USB-disk/flash stick. A nice RAID controller card costs at least $200, at least here in sweden.

Edit: Hmm.. Heck, I think you should always backup your data to yet another memory, even if you do use RAID. My friend was running RAID (mirrored disks) on a server once when one of disks broke down. The RAID-controller supported hot-swap, so he switched the faulty disk for a new one, but for some reason the data from the new disk (which was empty) was copied onto the other disk, meaning he lost everything.