Re: server

[Jochen Kunz <jkunz%unixag-kl.fh-kl.de@localhost>]

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:23:55 -0700 (MST)
Al - image hosting services <azick%zickswebventures.com@localhost> wrote:

> One of the reasons for looking at SGI systems is they look like they
> are smaller. I need to colo a box and for example my G3 is too
> expensive, because of its size.
You will have a hard time finding a box that is small or rackable,
faster then a G3 Mac, can take lots of disks, runs NetBSD and is not
i386. Maybe a Sun E220R / E420R or a Netra. Or an Alpha PWS 500au /
600au. A RS/6000 B50 could be an option too. But it has "only" a
375 MHz PPC604e CPU.

Thinking of SGIs: The O2 and the Indy are the only supported SGIs
smaler then a Mac. But they are slower and you need an extra box for
disks. The Indy is quite limited in IO: 10 MBit/s Ethernet, narrow fast
SCSI.

I am absolutely no friend pf PeeCees too. But I have capitulated about
two years ago. May main work machine is a dual P3 1GHz for two years
now. It is frankensteind out of cheap PeeCee dirt, e.g. a MSI board
with VIA chipset. Surprise: The machine is rock solid. Latest uptime
was well over 200 days. But I needed to upgrade to NetBSD 4, so I had
to reboot...

PeeCee Hardware can be good, solid and stable. But you have to pay for
it and select it carefully. You wrote about "Intel, SuperMicro, Dell,
Compaq, AOpen". I avoid most of these brans. At work we use some smal
1U 19" rack machines from IBM with good results. An AMD64 box from Sun
(you still can run NetBSD/i386 on them) would be my solution.

I mean: You are doing busines with this hardware. You make money with
this hardware. (At least it looks like this.) So you should be able to
invest in some serious hardware, not any AOpen or Comcrap junk PeeCees.
Get a Sun Fire X2200 M2 or somthing equivalent.
Sorry for the explicite words.
-- 


tsch__,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/