Server recommendations?

mikl · Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:41 pm Post subject: Server recommendations?

Hi there, boys and girls. I'm planning to invest in a server for hosting web-applications for my customers, and so I was thinking about getting one with the new 64-bit Dual-Core Intel Xeon (Woodcrest) processors - preferably a 1U rackserver.

So, which one should I pick - the most compelling I've seen is Apple's new Xserve, but that might only be because of their well-made ads for it. I've also looked at HP's offerings, but I have no real experience here, so I'd like if someone could point me in the right direction

What you you recommend?
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ragefan · Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:08 pm Post subject:

Apple's site doesn't show them shipping until Oct. Also, looking at the specs it does not do hardware RAID without getting the Fiber Channel RAID and Xserve RAID.

At the place I work, we have gone with SuperMicro SuperServers. They come in a bunch of configs. Just drop in the CPUs, amount of RAM, and the HDs you want and go. You can get Zero Channel Raid cards for them allow you to do RAID 5, 10 (do not need card for 0, 1). Plus there, OS-free so you're not paying for a Server OS just to wipe and put Linux on it.
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zeek · Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:48 pm Post subject:

We just got 3 Dell 1950s with these in them and its a real PITA trying to install any linux on them. Linux has poor support for the Megaraid SAS (rebranded as PERC5) and the Broadcom NetExtreme2 NIC.

DNAspark99 · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2004 Posts: 321

Being used to dells, the past two machines I've setup have been Sun's "SunFire X2100" series machines... running AMD opteron chips.
No complaints so far, other than a mysterious issue with the nic cards switching ethX assignments when booting from CD to installed kernel :

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-486192-highlight-.html

mikl · Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:31 am Post subject:

Insanity5902 · Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:53 pm Post subject:

Right now I use a mix of custom built machines, an ibm xseries, and a supermicro. Out of those 3, I like the supermicro the best. BUT I have been eyeballing Suns new sunfire's. x2100 look nice, you can get them as cheap as 745 (doesn't inlcude hard drive) Or you can look at the x2100 m2, they just came out with them, they look pretty sweet, opteron dual core, ~950 bucks, still no hard drive, but plenty of room for expandibilty.

If you are you just going to be hosting some web applictions, a couple of sata drives in a software raid 1 will be enough. No need to get hardware raid for that. I use a couple of 36GB raptors, and don't have a problem with performance at all. The newer 74 and 150GB models are even faster.
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Insanity5902 · Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:55 pm Post subject:

Oh yeah, and the Opteron 1210 (the sunfire x2100 m2) has the virtualization on it, so you can run xen on the dom0, and run just about any unmodified OS as the domU (think runnig multiple linux and windows servers from one physical box)
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