Is there a standard practice for life of a server?
 

Our office has a very small network of 8 PCs. We have a "server" in as much as a machine that is left on 24/7 with 2 RAID'd HDs. The server does nothing more taxing than holding word and excel files and pdfs etc.

IIRC I built the machine in 2006 and its never really been off since. For what we use it for its hardly taxed.

However, I am mildly concerned about its lifespan - is there standard practice for replacement of critical items like this?

Its all backed up almost daily if not weekly so we wouldn't be without the machines for more than a couple of hours if it did break.

I'm asking because its the end of the year and need to know how much of the IT budget I can swindle to build a new gaming PC :D

We have servers that are over 10 years old. They are on 24/7 and we've no real need to replace them. We just accept that if they die, we restore from a backup to another server which may mean a day of downtime. On the other hand, our critical system servers are replaced every 4 years at a maximum. (usually when the hardware warranty runs out).

We do have one critical system on an NT box (Dell poweredge), running sql 6.5 that has only been off for a maximum of 4 Hours in the last 10 years. Never once had a hardware issue with it! We have an identical box next to it ready for a quick swapover.

I guess it's up to you to make an assesment on based on business continutiy requirements.

Depends on the customer and how much they squeek when it comes to spending money.

A "proper" server like a HP ProLiant will usually see at least 5 years for most of our customers. I'm just speaking to somebody else about looking to budget a replacement server for Q1 2011, at which point their server will be just over 7 years old (Supermicro based box I built).