[geeks] Server Suggestions...

[Mark Benson]

On Thu, 2009-01-29 at 08:25 -0500, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> How important is it to you to get the whole thing in a single box with a
> brand name matching the one on the case?

Not bothered really as long as it works. I'm a highly experience
self-builder so it would be zero problem to assemble one myself, I just
assumed it was better to buy a vendor's machine but now I look at the
price tag it doesn't look such good value.

Sourcing the parts in the UK might be an issue, I'm not overly sure
where the hell one buys Antec server cases from in the UK to be honest!

I forgot to mention I need LOW over IP, preferably with a graphical
redirect so I can admin it from remote locations over our VPN.

I was looking at a Poweredge 1900 but was mightily peeved to find that
they've removed the redundant PSU option on that model, which our
current 1800 has. Otherwise it'd have been the perfect machine.

> Because if you're not wedded
> to having a single-source machine, in your place I'd look for the
> specific parts and build the machine myself.  I'm pretty certain you can
> get a case with redundant PSUs from Antec, though you may have to settle
> for a rackmount case and stand it on its side if you want a tower
> configuration.  (Just because the case is rackmountable doesn't mean you
> have to put it in a rack.)  Pretty much any modern motherboard will take
> a 4-core processor and multiple SATA drives, and do firmware RAID1 or
> RAID5 across them.  (Possibly RAID6.)  If you want multiple CPUs, you
> probably want to look at a Tyan board.  (Tyan tends to make more
> server-oriented hardware anyway.)

I'll certainly factor that option in when I calculate the costs of each
option.

Anyone got any suggestions for IBM, HP, Dell or others in that price
bracket?

> > I also need advice on a backup system that will tolerate dust.
> DAT has always had a bit of a rep as a write-only backup medium.
> Backing up to DAT is almost like not backing up at all, except for being
> more time-consuming.

I believe you, except ours doesn't even write sometimes :P

> My LTO1 drive lives in an external case in a
> regular room that it shares with people and cats, and I haven't had any
> dust problems with it, but I have had to replace LTO drives at about
> three-year intervals.  They don't last forever.  But what does?

This isn't you're normal household dust unfortunately. This place is a
4x4 mail order house with a service and repair shop. The dust here is a
choking mixture of concrete dust, mud and ferrous oxide. Suffice to sat
the latter isn't very good for tapes.

-- 
Mark Benson
http://markbenson.org/blog