For what you described, as long as you don't need huge amounts of CPU 
horsepower, something like this:
http://www.provantage.com/supermicro-sys-5015a-ehf-d525~7SUP928X.htm
looks like it will more than fit your needs and budget.  If your are 
just serving to a classroom full of students, this should be more than 
adequate.

Brian Cluff

On 10/16/2011 08:33 PM, Phillip Waclawski wrote:
> I'm in the market for a small, cheap server machine to replace the aging
> Dell Workstations I'm using for my students (Pentium III Coppermine...
> really ;).
>
> I don't need anything special in the way of graphics. Need 2-4 Gigs of
> Ram ( to be honest, haven't had issues with the 512Meg I have in the
> existing ones).
>
> Just want something stable, able to take 2 or more SATA drives and not
> be much of a power hog. I'll be using CentOS 6 on them. And I'd like to
> keep it in the low range for the student server, under $500 if I can.
>
> Dennis Kibbe has suggested some of the HP Proliant Micro Servers, and
> they do look interesting. I figured I'd just ask this group for some of
> their opinions,
>
> Phil Waclawski
> MCC CIS Faculty
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss

---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss