ed.ward’s New Servers

Wow. It’s time again for new servers. For some reason, this event seems vaguely familiar. In the short operating span of a month, mooey5775 and ed.ward have switched through three different servers:

• C.H.I.P. from Next Thing Co.
• Raspberry Pi Model B (a slight downgrade)
• Random HP Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270)

Well, it’s time again for a new server, especially since this HP netbook from somewhere around 2008 seems a bit underpowered for the task of hosting any WordPress site.

While we’re on the topic of servers from 2008, my new server is also from around that time too. It’s a Dell PowerEdge 1950 (9th generation!), and I’m really excited to introduce it to you and ed.ward.

Specs

Before we get any further, I just want to share some specs, as there is a lot of potential variability with PowerEdges of the same model:

• 2 Xeons – 2.67 GHz quad-core E5430
• 16 GB (8×2 GB) DDR2 667 MHz RAM
• 250 TB SATA 7200RPM hard drive
• Lots of other PowerEdge goodies, like dual ethernet, redundant power supplies (if I want them), etc.

All of these specs should make this new system over 20 times more powerful than this current server and 3-4 times more powerful than my Macbook Pro that I use, even though this server is from 2008. I’ll have to wait until I actually have it in my hands to give any definitive answers about performance though.

Rationale

Some of you might be wondering why this is needed. After all, there aren’t that many visitors anyway at this point. Well, there are a few reasons why I chose to switch to this server.

First, the cost is what really hit me. Someone on eBay was selling this model of PowerEdge for only $59.00, with $23.50 for shipping, which is really cheap for this type of server. It might not have been one of my most thought out buying decisions, but it might be worth it in the future.

Next, I have a few other websites that I would be interested in moving off of shared hosting and onto this server for increased control and ease of adding an SSL cert to those websites too. Bluehost is great, but SSL is even better. While I’m on this topic, go check out a few of my other sites: Kids2Kids and RidgewoodKids. I’m not sure if my brother’s sites will be migrated too, but check out his site anyway this really nice coming soon page!

Finally, I got it because of its power. If I ever need to run multi-core processes on a powerful machine, I can use my server. This is especially useful if I’m too lazy to optimize my algorithms during a CTF competition and just want to bash a program out.

I guess it can’t hurt that this server is also rack mounted, which gives me an opportunity to test out the LackRack, a server rack created after someone realized that IKEA LACK tables basically fit rack mounted hardware. Expect something from me about the LackRack if I ever get an opportunity to make it.

Rollout

Sadly, this server will probably not be able to be set up until early-mid August, as I will be away for the majority of the summer. I’ll try to maintain my daily posting schedule, but there may be a few days where I will miss this schedule. I’m going to be in China soon, so expect a few days missed, especially if this blog is blocked there. I’ll try to have a few posts lined up though.

Meanwhile, I wish FedEx luck in dealing with my package that weighs 50 pounds. See you all soon!

UPDATE 6/23/16: anli5005.rocks updated to an actual site.