Building an economical small to mid scale development server

Question

Can anyone recommend a cheap rack/server combination for our office shared linux development server?

We have limited knowledge so I want something that we can upgrade hard drives and RAM easily. I wanted a rack so we can add more servers if we needed to add a switch, router or backup device. It doesn't have to be off the shelf, though it can be. Incidentally, we were looking to use windows 7 with vmware to host multiple linux VM's, only because its what we know, but would it be wiser to use a linux virtualization?

Answer 1

For your virtualization OS, check out VMWare's ESXi. It is a Linux-based virtual machine host with remote management (no local).

Get started with free virtualization. VMware vSphere Hypervisor is a production-ready hypervisor that lets you virtualize your servers, helping you save time and money on managing your IT infrastructure. Built on the world’s smallest and most robust architecture, VMware vSphere ESXi, the vSphere Hypervisor, sets the industry standard for reliability, performance and ecosystem support. Consolidate your applications onto fewer servers and start saving money through reduced hardware, power, cooling and administration costs.

As for the hardware recommendations, that's a bit off-topic for SuperUser.

Dell servers are pretty good, of the companies I've worked for (3), they've all used them. Also, don't worry about hard drives in the servers themselves, shop around for data stores. These are server add-ons that can support a large number of disks.