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In the Forums... |
Posted: May 30, 2001 Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen The Hardware (con.t) The Network Cards: 2x Intel EtherExpress Pro 100Mbps Instead of having just one network card, I decided it would be to the server’s advantage to have two. If a server has two network cards, you can set the server up to be a network router. If you prefer buying a separate hub/router/switch and using only one network card, that works just as well. You’ll even save some time setting up routing and proxy software on the server.  Intel makes some of the best network cards you can buy and its EtherExpress 100 Pro series are no exception. It comes with comprehensive management and monitoring tools to let you control features such as duplex and auto sensing speeds. Intel cards also have very low CPU utilization time. This means while all the network traffic is occurring, the server doesn’t have to spend precious CPU cycles doing things that the network card should be able to do. The Sound Card: Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Value If the server is going to be able to do some gaming later on, we’ll want it to be able to make some noise besides those created by its Ultra160 RAID array!  While the soundcard isn’t a necessity inside a server, it can come in handy sometimes. It’s more of a necessity in a game server than in any other server. If you have no intentions to do anything remotely game on you server, you likely won’t need a sound card. If you are using a motherboard like the MSI K7T Pro I’m using, you can simply use the onboard sound. Because the server isn’t your primary system, you probably won’t be connecting high-end speakers to it so the onboard sound should give you all you need. |
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