The beauty of having an Access Jet 4 backend like what I have at my office is that you don't need a typical RAID dedicated backend server, with redundancy that multiplies the hardware costs exponentially.

Just yesterday I was looking at my former 7-year old backend "server", now running as a client. I sports a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 machine with a Prescott motherboard and has a now failing hard drive and it has only a 300 Watt Power source. I swapped out the old 80GB HD for a new 500GB HD and bingo! Another 5 years for that beast...

>>> The issue with your server was a design issue. When ever I "build my own server" I always buy two of the things most likely to fail:
1) Motherboard (identical model)
2) Power Supply (Redundant)
3) Extra Hard Disk (even if you have RAID)
4) CPU Fan

The problem that I see with having extra hardware just lying around, besides taking up space and tying up your money is that all of that hardware will quickly become old, and much of it will never be usable when something finally fails. Why not get the stuff at your nearest Micro Center? Instead of a redundant MB, why not buy a new "barebones" or full Dell server on eBay when something goes wrong? They would be much cheaper...

Al

Last edited by alborg; 07/04/2009 6:24 PM.