In terms of white-box "server" equipment in the $800 price range, Gigabyte motherboards are VERY good. They have redundant flash bios, a good 6-phase clock system that delivers REALLY good signals to all the parts on the board, and they do dual LAN on them - a 10/100 and a 10/100/1000. The nForce chipsets are really good in that respect - the nForce chipset network has performance equalling the good Intel network cards (low CPU load, throughput). Serial ATA(x4), RAID 0/1, up to 4GB RAM (1GB x 4 dual-channel DIMM slots).
William Page > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Torrie > Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 7:58 PM > To: BYU Unix Users Group > Subject: Re: [uug] [OT] {slightly} Entry Level Server > > > On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 16:49, Mark Gardner wrote: > > DISCLAIMER *** I do not intend to start any holy wars or nit > > picking*** > > > > I'm getting ready to build an entry level serve class > machine. I've > > build dozens and doezens of workstations and VERY low grade servers. > > Since all of you have some expertise in this field i was wondering > > what you consider most important. What would you recomend as types > > of hardware requirements. > > > > This list is NON inclusive (please add more if you feel it warrents) > > - White box vs. Dell, HP, etc... > > 3 year overnight parts replacement is one good reason to buy > a brand name like Dell or HP. I've heard that HP or Compaq's > server management tools are way nice and much better than Dell's. > > If this server has any kind of business purpose, I'd > definitely go with a real server-grade box (redundant power > supplies, cooling fans, rack mount, etc). > > > - Dual Processor vs. Single > > - SDRAM vs RAMBUS (is 1 GIG ok or should it be more) > > I avoid Rambus on out of ethical principle, although I really > have no idea about this. I don't believe any of my recent > servers have come with Ramus. > > > - EIDE raid > > You mean hardware SATA raid? Sure. See below. > > > - SCSI or SATA raid > > SCSI disks still edge out sata in terms of performance. > Although conventional wisdom dictates that if price is no > object, go with SCSI, I am having a harder and harder time > justifying SCSI on my servers. > Especially when the new dell poweredges come with real > hardware sata raid controllers. Plus if you buy drives from > Quantum or Seagate, they are now pretty much the same drive > (same cache even). In fact I think the Seagate SATA drives > still have 3 year warranties, which makes me more comfortable > about using SATA in a server vs say Maxtor or Western Digital. > > If you can afford it, Raid 5 is always a good idea, although > statistics indicate that Raid 1 would give quite a bit of > failure protection. Bear in mind also that low-end ATA raid > controllers are often software raid. > > > - AMD 64 vs. AMD vs. PENTIUM > > > > I've heard good things about the AMD 64 in servers (from HP I think). > On the other hand going with a good, proven server platform > like the Pentium III Xeon or the Pentium 4 isn't bad either. > > > > > I guess this would be helpful too. The machine i'm > building will be > > for Novell Netware demo. But later will be SUSE ENTERPRISE both > > Operating systems will be VERY network heavy. I am on a budget of > > about $800 > > Given your budget, I'd say you won't be able to afford real > server hardware. Servers start about $1500 with Dell and go > up to over $10,000. > > You'll have to go whitebox, say AMD64, SDRAM, SATA Raid. > Basically you'll have a glorified consumer quality > workstation running as a server. I think you'll be fine. > > Michael > > > > > > thanks > > _\ | /_ > > (@ @) > > -----oOOo-(_)-oOOo----- > > ~Mark > > ~Gardner > > > > ____________________ > > BYU Unix Users Group > > http://uug.byu.edu/ > > ___________________________________________________________________ > > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list > -- > Michael Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list > > --- > Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.779 / Virus Database: 526 - Release Date: 10/19/2004 > > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.779 / Virus Database: 526 - Release Date: 10/19/2004 ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
