Alright, server hardware time. I've recently gotten myself employed in the web hosting industry at a house where we primarily build our own boxen, then slap Debian on them, but we have quite a mix of server kit around, so given your own choice, what would you deploy? Or really, what did your boss deploy and you like working on?

Cheers,

Finegan

Once again, the old poll threads....

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=143662
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=121281
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=123603
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=125816
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=131627
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=133998

Also, if anyone else hasn't noticed the infrequency of these, I'm usually stumped for ideas... so if you've got a wide spread arguable topic you would like to see, just mail me or post it here... although I would prefer mail as to keep this on topic.

Cheers,

Finegan

Dell makes some nice looking racks... the hardware is pretty good too. LOL

I have I nice looking compaq 8U server. It is bullet proof.

I've just bought 3 dual processor Dells (3Ghz Xeons, 12GB RAM, terabyte storage after RAID5, dual Gb nics) and they pretty much rock . Sadly only one will be running *nix.
Evesham (evesham.co.uk) get my vote as well, they produce some good hardware and know what they're talking about.
Our Compaq is pretty robust and we've a couple of inhouse builds that, while cranky as hell, have lasted for about 6 years so I think they're entitled.

But for a truly reliable webserver I recommend a Dell Optiplex Gs+ 233Mhz, get a good one and they'll laugh at a tactical nuke - you may have trouble convincing your co-workers though.

Compaq makes/made some nice looking racks too. HP's racks are kind of wimpy, being mostly plastic, though they also look slick. IMHO, you can build equipment yourself that's just as reliable as anything those vendors provide for a lot less money. When you're giving investors or customers the data center tour however, appearance is very important. A professional looking server room is like wearing a suit and tie vs. sneakers and jeans. Sure, the sneakers and jeans guy might be just as competent, but the guy dressed for success is going to make the better first impression. So, I justify the expense the same way I do dropping a grand at Brooks Brothers (...those clown college sized lapels on Armani's are plain ugly.)

compaq / hp make some pretty good servers but Dell makes good servers for a smaller price. i havent had problems dealing with dell in the past regarding service problems, however with compaq / HP i have had nightmares trying to get in contact of anyone there that wont tell me "you have to call this other number" in the end it should be a balance between service and the equipment. you could buy the best equipment in the world but if something goes wrong with it its important to have good service behind that product.

I like Micron servers, because thats what I use at work!! But I want some sun servers for my house one of these days!!!

dell's good

Dell Servers may had/have a problem if you have many of them: There is no current limit til the PSU capacitors are full!
After a longer powerouttake, they powered on all at the same time which blows any fuse ! You have to use a expensive Powersequenzer or power them by hand :-(

Compaq Servers have sometimes to be disassembled completely just to reach a small part.

IBM. Not only do they have excellent hardware, they are also fighting for opensource.

We have recently bought a Dell 600sc (ok it has sbs2000 on it) but its a nice machine and very quiet too compared to our old HP netserver which was a noisy unreliable old b'strd.

We used a lot of Dell Power Edge servers for clustered Red Hat app servers at my last job. Dell wasn't bad but they have a definite AMD aversion, which is bad for those who could benefit from AMD Opteron 64 micro processors (interestingly for big enough clients, to Dell's shame, were able to demand servers with these anyway and Dell did sell them).

HP and Compaq are the same now, with Compaq's distributions channels slowly being absorbed, but a DL 360 has an equivalent HP version (forget the model number currently) so the difference there is academic. Personally I don't like either company much, though HP has been a big supporter of Debian and such in the past.

Sun, well with big box solutions evaporating daily in favor of clustered and AMD really killing the 64 bit market for them, well I see Sun needing to reinvent itself. No, I would not buy Sun boxes.

I've never been in favor of building your own server, you really do benefit in a large server farm from the homogeonaiety (is that even a word?) of a big vendor like Dell (PC user, OTOH, does not). However right now, I might just start building my own.

BTW, just before I left my last job, Dell was in swapping out the motherboards in several of our PE 1650s as they had found many of them (not ours) were catching on fire. So you can have some stinky hardware from anyone big, not just from building your own.

hardware catching on fire... at my school they have an old K6 400 meg as a spam filter, and the psu has no fan, so it keeps over heating. if you touch the case over the psu you burn your finger.

http://www.synetic.net/Synetic-Produ...v-Products.htm

Great Price and the performance is excellent.