Your Server

Is computer server any good for personal use?

I want to know if computer server is the same as general computer. I also want to know what sort of extra benefits from having computer server for personal use. Thank you so much for your response.

Public Comments

1. There are dozens of types of servers. A server is a computer used for a specific task. Some servers could be useful for personal use. Like for me I have a file server and it stores all of the files from all of my computer on the network.
2. Something like a home fileserver is very useful. I built one for the house from my old computer parts. It is a standard computer, but configured for capacity: Opteron 165 2 GB DDR 400 4x 750 GB Hard drives in software RAID 5 (260 MB/sec). 2x bonded gigabit network interface Ubuntu Server 10.04 x64 From this server, I can store documents from all PC's in the house onto one central location. I can also stream music or videos to any computer on the network at the same time (or even different ones concurrently). It's very handy for doing reformatting, as all you have to do is back up your documents onto this server. RAID5 gives redundancy so that if one of the drives in the server dies, all data will still be available. The processor is fast enough to keep up with the software implementation, and if the board ever dies, I can install this array on any system with 4 SATA ports, and continue to have RAID without having to do anything special. It uses standard PC components, but more of a server oriented operating system. It's a lot like using an external hard drive, but connected to every computer at the same time.
3. Servers can be optimised for their role in various ways and precisely how that is done affects their use as a workstation. Some aspects of a server may not be as good as a regular PC - for example some servers have no graphics capability to speak of - there may not be anywhere to hook up a monitor even if you wanted to. PC derived servers do not usually go that far but still may have a very primitive graphics cards simply because something more advanced is not justified. Other customisations depend on the role the server is undertaking. For example many servers do little more than file and print. Neither of these need a lot of processor power so while a customised fileserver may have a very fast disk subsytem it may be lacking in terms of processor speed. That is pretty much all my home server does for example and that only has a single core, 600MHz processor to keep power consumption down - it is operating 24/7 so that is a major consideration. It works fine for what I ask of it but it would be slooooow if used interactively. Higher end servers may also have additional reliability features built in so that they can operate for years at a time without so much as a reboot. Things like RAID disk arrays or redundant power supplies. They also typically have much larger cases to accommodate extra drives and equipment. None of these things make a server machine less suited to workstation use from a technical perspective, but many users would prefer a smaller, quieter and less power hungry machine on their desk.