Building Server, need help

I have experience building my own pc listed below

My boss, a neurologist, wants me to build a sevrer to handle patient accounts and files.

Obviously , I think SMP is overkill as processing power is not very important

my key priorities are

#1 - stability
#2 Security
#3 Storage





I think RAID mirror array(with reliable HD), redundant PS, and a single P4 with lots of ram will do fine, on a STABLE M/B

any suggestions"
is their any advantage to using a server SMP board with one processor in my scenario
thanks

just a couple of questions first. How many different pcs would try to access the server at once? How big would the database be?

I agree that a mirrored array would be a good choice. Maybe the sata wd rapors might be worth looking into, but any ide harddrive would work if it was not being accessed frequenly.

probably 5 computers


the size of data is not small( well, the collective database of all patients would be) butr the dta most commonly being shared between the computers would not be too large

access would be moderate (just the local network)

I WOULD get a dual board! If it is going to be a sever then build a server. Don't do it half assed. Get an Intel SE7500CW2 [NewEgg] board and use ECC DDR. Board has onboard IDE RAID/Dual Intel LAN/onboard video. Dual Channel DDR/64bit PCI-X slots, etc. $365 at Newegg

Get 2x512mb ECC DDR. And get good stuff.

Get a couple SAMSUNG 40GB or 80GB 7200RPM SP HDDs [Longest MTBF in the industry for IDE drives] if you are gonna do IDE RAID1. Got more money??? Then SCSI is better than IDE.

You will not need big Xeons [unless you are running a big web server or something like that] so go with a couple XEON 1.8GHZ or 2.0GHZ Hyperthreading Prestonias for about $155/$185 each.

If you are building a server for business with important data don't try to cheap out. You will be sorry if you do.