[Gllug] Recommendations for servers

[j.roberts]

On 24/11/10 18:04, - Tethys wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 5:55 PM, j.roberts<j.roberts at stabilys.com>  wrote:
>
>>> https://secure.dnuk.com/store/servers.php
>>
>> I do find those very expensive per spec.
>
> Maybe so. But they're well made, high quality machines, with great
> support to back them up. Anything you saved by buying a cheaper
> machine would be dwarfed by the amount lost faffing around when
> something breaks. Like Alain, I have no connection with the company,
> other than being a satisfied customer.

I think we will all have to agree to differ. I am by no means knocking 
the DNUK boxes; for end users, having real and dedicated Linux support 
and driver support is valuable. It may be essential in other 
applications as well.

However these DNUK boxes use off-the-shelf ASUS and/or Supermicro 
motherboards of medium quality, together with far-east casework just 
like all the rest. AFAICS DNUK do not offer any better warranty or 
on-site service than HP or Dell.

In over 20 years of building selling and supporting all sorts of 
servers, I have never had an HP or Dell server fail in service - which I 
cannot say for other makes (most especially ASUS and, once, Supermicro - 
both of which I had used to sell).

The OP specified that software RAID and two disks was an adequate 
specification; since RAID 5 has a minimum requirement of 3 disks I 
assumed OP meant RAID1. As far as software RAID is concerned, Intel now 
agrees:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/15/sas_in_patsburg/

If price is an issue then HP or Dell *may* be a better solution than 
DNUK for this questioner. If price is not an issue we are not talking 
about rational decision making in the commercial sense, and other 
factors must rule.

I suspect I am not alone in this view: HP (and Dell) do probably have a 
bit bigger market in Linux servers than DNUK do. None of my large 
commercial clients (who include some of the companies doing all of the 
international back transactions in the banking system) are using DNUK 
servers: they specify HP for their hundreds of RedHat boxes. They buy HP 
4-hour onsite warranty as well.

Equally, if price is the only consideration, and the application set is 
under one's full control, then one can do a Google and use the cheapest 
commodity gear, without a box, wired up so that disk - or indeed node - 
failure is irrelevant.

I doubt that that applies to the OP or most of us.

So the OP will no doubt make their own choice according to priorities as 
they see it; I merely offered some possibilities.

MeJ

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