[YLUG] Server purchase

[Robert Hulme]

> > 1) Some kind and lovely person from a different dept is going to
> > buy us a shiny new server and I've no real idea what I am looking for.
> We use the new Sun Opteron servers. A single opteron 1U box is very
> cheap (about 6-700 quid). Goes like stink as well.
The Sun Opteron boxes are very attractive as I assume they are of high
build quality and of a low price.

If you want more CPU power than the entry level opteron boxes they
become a lot more expensive than speccing it up yourself. The entry
level 1U boxes only have 2 disk bays as well AFAIK.

If you want cheap boxes then I would recommend a rack mount case from
xcase (http://www.xcase.co.uk/acatalog/Rackmount_and_Server_Cases.html).
In terms of CPU power if you go the opteron route you have to use ECC
RAM which is a lot more expensive (but also more realiable!), but the
X2 line of Athlon64's are effectively dual core versions of the same
chip (so much more CPU power), are a lot cheaper (clock for clock),
don't require expensive (where expensive in these terms is > £100)
motherboards, andcan use normal RAM.

OTOH you might want a nice ECC Opteron box. Personally in these
situations I've gone with Tyan for motherboard and the dual core
opterons with ECC RAM. A lot more expensive but then it depends what
you want it for, what your budget is, and how you want to optimise for
that.
-- 
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"98.5% of DNA is considered to be junk DNA with no known purpose.
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"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by
definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Kernighan

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