I recently bought a new server on behalf of the local junior school. I wanted a good name brand server for which they could get support. Custom building a server wasn't an option because of insurance/liability issues.

I did quite a bit of research to source it. I wanted a multi-core CPU and much preferred an Intel Core 2 Duo for its excellent performance and lower power consumption. I also wanted a case that could hold at least 3 hard disks and a motherboard with spare SATA connections.

The cheapest server that offered all this was an HP ProLiant ML110 G4. It was cheaper than anything from Supermicro or Dell or anything else I looked at. I bought the minimal configuration which included an Xeon 3040 (1.86Ghz), 512Mb ECC PC2 5300 DDR II RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, 160Gb hard disk, DVD-ROM and built-in video.

I also bought two extra hard disks to install in the server in a RADI 1 (mirror) configuration. It's much cheaper buying them seperately and installing them yourself than adding it to the server configuration. I chose two Western Digital Raid Edition (RE2) 400Gb SATA150 disks (WD4000YR). These are excellent enterprise level disks.

It was all bought from PC World Business for only £620 - a bargain in my books.

I assembled the server this last week. The build quality is a bit flimsy but it does the job. I'm pleased that there are 4 SATA connections and room for four hard disks. It's a bit noisy - especially the turbine start-up - but it will be hidden away in a closet so that doesn't matter. I'm dead pleased that we've been able to put together such a well specified server so little money.