Buying/Building a Server

[jetstrike]

If you were going to buy/build a server for 5 to 50 players what would you reccomend... Preferably something capable of being windows base as I am not familiar with linux and something that can hold atleast 1 1TB drive. No external ports or coomunications would be needed. no monitor or keyboards or anything. just a 1tb drive and 1 usb slot. it wont be doing anything but serving and Im looking to spend 400 or less if possible.

[KodeKatt]

Build your own?

Motherboard: $50
2GB RAM: $40
2.6GHz+ dual+ core: $80
80GB HDD: $35
250W PS: $60
Case: $20

Total cost for bare bone dedicated server box: $300 with shipping.
I don't see any need for over 40GB honestly, unless it's for more than just an EQ server.

[jetstrike]

Occasional data backups to a seperate partition of the drive

[KodeKatt]

I've got MySQL, EQEmu, Perl, Apache, PHP, FTP Server, Email Server, EverQuest (game), and various other little things all on a 31.5GB HDD called ServerBin. Data/storage for email + http is on another drive. There's still 18.6GB Free space.

This is why I question the explicit desire of 1TB.
If you're looking for backup, run a RAID1 with 2x 80GB, or get a 160GB or 250GB HDD. But I can assure you.. for OS (6-15GB) + EQServer + Mini Webstatus server (apache+php).. you're looking at less than 20GB used in total.
This is assuming it's a dedicated EQ server.

I'm just trying to give you an idea of the best without overkilling the requirements while keeping in your price range.
1TB is: 1,000GB (avaliable) / 25Gb (req) = 40x overkill. You can do a shitload of backup with an 80GB.. Because subtract a 2-4GB PageFile, a 6-12GB OS.. and bloated out to 20GB used in end, that's still 20-(6+2)=12 - 1Gb worth of binary crap = 11GB (i don't know how the hell you'd even have that much data from an EQ server to be backed up..). So.. let's see (1,000 - 20) / 11 = 89 backups with me assuming largest numbers to get the least amount of backups. I think you've got the idea if you're still reading this.