Would this be a decent home server?

Hello,

I'm trying to find a cheap server because i'm on a very tight budget. I'm a college student but my buddies and I have a lot of side projects.

We are looking to host maybe 3 websites, use Microsoft lync, and possibly a counter strike 1.6 server(not important though). We get all the software free as a CSE student so thats not a problem.

But will this server be able to handle that?
RACKABLE 2U SERVER WITH INTEL S5000PSL BOARD DUAL CORE XEON 5150 2x 2.66GHZ 4GB | eBay
I'm new to server systems and it just seems like there could be something up with it for just $79 bucks. Is it pretty far out of date?

He also has another with 8GB for 30 bucks more. Shipping is no big deal because i live 25 minutes away and plan for local pickup.

Thanks,
Eddie

Other than there's no hard drive included, looks okay.

Oh yeah! I've got about 4 x 500GB hard drives laying around, ill probably use them. The more i think about it ill go with the 8GB for $30 more.

Thanks for your input!

Might want to look into that, I don't deal with rack servers too much but it looks like there are special slots for them, i.e. you might be forced into buying hard drives from a specific vendor. Or at least buying the brackets.

For a couple of side projects and some old game, that's really overkill. You don't need more than the baseline.
It's also going to consume power like crazy, so make sure you take that into account.

How is it going to be plugged into the net? If you are just going to put it in someone's place on a normal ISP account, the upload speed is (almost always) less than the download speed, and in context the server is actually uploading more than downloading. Ie, that is the bottleneck, and most likely that box will be able to keep up easily -- but it depends on how much processing the software (lync + gameserver) needs to do.

So before you buy anything, take a computer you already have and determine how fast it can upload thru your ISP to another computer as a server. The specs of the computer don't matter, just stream "XXXXXXXXXX" or whatever. That's your hard limit. You can spend $10000 on racks and it will not make any difference.

The idea is to match the potential of the equipment to the potential of the connection. Set up the software you want to use and test it with a client on the same box (local loopback) or use a crossover cable (better, since this eliminates the client's overhead). Keep adding clients until the server fails to keep up, and compare the transfer rate to what your connection potential is.

You could also do both things at the same time by just setting up a computer you have as the server and trying your best to max it out from elsewhere, but realistically -- ISP's are onto this game. They charge money to run high traffic servers from your house. A lot more. The $79 box is going to look like peanuts compared to that.

To make a long story short: hardware is not the issue and hence the hardware you buy doesn't matter.