The Anatomy of a Server - The Chassis

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The standardized form factor for a computer case is ATX as opposed to the older AT style, which stands for “Advanced Technology.” The ATX case is simply an “extend-able” AT case, turning the motherboard 90 degrees to make room for more expansion slots. I recommend an ATX midtower for our chassis, with at least a 300-watt power supply. This gives you six drive bays, room enough for two CD-ROM/DVDs, a tape-backup drive, a floppy drive, six expansion cards, and up to three hard drives. I found this computer case on sale at a local computer show for $26 (see Figure 3), and another at a local wholesale outlet for $22 (see Figure 4). This included a 300-watt power supply, which is the minimal we’ll need for our server. The tower case is a taller, vertical unit, as opposed to the traditional desktop. This tower case gives you more room to work and ample capabilities for expansion. Power supplies usually range from 150 watts for the smaller, micro-ATX cases, up to over 500 watts for multiprocessing servers. I picked up a full server tower (see Figure 5) from eBay for about $45, including shipping. It’s a monster case with eight drive bays, which I don’t think I could fill in my lifetime. Hard drives are over 200GB now, so bigger doesn’t mean better, just heavier.