I am looking at setting up a server at home. Will prob run Apache. But I want to set it up on its own tower so I don't have to worry about my PC being at risk. What all would I need to make this work, I might just build it myself this is the list I have made so far:

300GB Hard drive
NIC card
Motherboard(not too sure on optimal processor)
RAM (again not too sure how much I should put in)
KVM - so I can share my PC workstation

What are you looking to run off this server? Typically servers don't need to be super machines. For ftp servers and voip servers (teamspeak), you can get by with a 500mhz machine. It's probably not recommended with today's desire for instant gratification, but it will work just fine. If you're running dedicated game servers or web hosting, you'll need a more powerful processor and ALOT of bandwidth from your ISP. Make sure your ISP will allow you the amount of bandwidth you require, otherwise you may find yourself capped as far as internet useage goes.

..Apache... what? You mean Apache Web server, cuz there's a lot of other products that fall under the term "Apache."

The server will be used for web hosting.

Ahh, well then, depending on how many concurrent users you're going to be serving, you might want to look into a couple gigs of RAM. At the very least I'd put in 1 gig. CPU-wise, my opinion is that you can probably get away with a 1.5 GHz, although I'd personally spring for a 2.0+ GHz since you can get a 2.8 GHz chip for ~$100 these days.

These are pretty broad answers, but generally speaking Apache is a pretty light weight Web server until you get a lot of sessions running simultaneously. I've seen Tomcat handle 20 concurrent sessions on a little 700 MHz box, although it was pretty slow.

I am tending to agree with PDX. I'd recommend an AMD 64 Socket 939 processor rated at 3500+ or higher. I think anything over 3200+ is 2.2GHz if I'm not mistaken. I know alot of people will consider chiming in with the Core Duo as the recommended processor, but it's a bit overkill for the application you're looking to run. Not to mention the fact that there really is no Intel chip other than the Core Duo that can post higher benchmarks than the AMD 64 chips. Also, AMD is MUCH more cost effective than Intel.

Anything over 1GB RAM may even be overkill. Typically a system will start bottlenecking at the RAM when you hit the 1.5GB mark depending on your workload. You'll need a minimum of 512mb RAM. 1GB would be recommended (like PDX said).

As for harddrive, I'd HIGHLY recommend getting a motherboard that will support SATA RAID configurations. SATA is a much more practical drive and a much higher speed drive as well.

If you do a web server from home, make sure you are not violating your ISP's TOS or you'll be up the creek without a paddle. If you are just dabbling, any decent machine will do, but if you are seriously trying to host some data, then you will want memory (RAM) more than anything else.

Check my first post Samueul

wow guys thanks that was just the type of info. I was looking for..

I host my website with a Linksys NSLU2 hacked out running Linux I use thttpd though, even though you can make a LAMP out of it and run Apache.

You don't need a very powerful server to put content on the web if it's not streaming media or such. For home, mine works just fine. Matter of factly, the box running my firewall is much more powerful than the webserver ever hoped to be.

My FTP, camera controls, and other nitpicky stuff runs on an XP box that feeds the NSLU2 the data on a "grab it as it needs it" basis. Basically a go between the requests and where the data actually is. So if you manage to get past 3 NAT routers, a firewall, and then crack the webserver, you still didn't get nothing.... If I wanted more security, I'd indeed use Apache, but I think my setup is much more reliable.

If I was you, I'd load Fedora Core on a $30 E-bay machine with some ram and play with it. I pick up Dell mini-towers all the time for cheap to use as toys, I'm sure one of those would suit you just fine.

I'm going to be a bit contradictory to what others are saying, and tell you that CPU and RAM for a webserver aren't a super huge deal. Hard drive space is definately an issue, but if your just hosting a website, and only serving up pages, something old and vanilla will do you.
I run several decent websites that all give up content fairly quickly, two of the site are for NPO's that coulnd't afford anything extravagant. Their sites run just as well as the ones that are coming off of a dedicated server that is a true server. The only difference in the technology was a lot of money. The NPO's spent about $200 to get themselves up and running, and this includes my time. We managed to pick up some old computers (read PIII's) and they're all running Linux.

Just my $0.02 worth

Nochor, you aren't being completely contrdictory. I said that servers can be run off of older slower machines too. I think overkill for a server is just going to hurt your pocket book......

Sorry to jump in so late, but rather than far west X taking the chance of having his ISP drop him for excessive bandwidth usage, could he not consider throttling bandwidth?