Many thanks to those who responded to my query regarding server hardware to run SUSE 9.2 on. I'm am strongly leaning towards an HP dual Opteron model (DL145) because of spansion possibilies and my space limitation. And cost, of course. One issue concerns me though. Since SUSE amd64 is a different version than i386, what issues am I going to have with commercial packages since I can't just recompile for amd64? Is this a genuine compatibilty issue, or is it just an optimization issue? Some of the commercial packages I might want to install don't have amd64 versions. Thanks Rob Quoting Rob Brandt <bronto@csd-bes.net>:
I'm about to install my own colo server in a data center. I need to supply the hardware myself, and am free to pick any components that suit me as long as it fits in a rack (I assume a 1U form factor). Up until this time I have been running a very lowend tower server for use as a development server with only a few public sites. This will be for use mostly as a LAMP web server running content management systems; most sites will have low volume although a few are fairly high. Other than the LAMP sites, I do run a few moderate volume mailman mailing lists. I have a low budget and want to get the most bang for my buck.
The network engineering folks I work with recommend HP DL320's, and they are an HP reseller and are "Windows People". They frequently buy off of the HP refurb list. The DL320 is a single processor 3ghz P4 expandable to 2gigs of RAM. My own inclination is to believe that memory is of supreme importance, and that AMD Opterons may be a better value. HP has an Opteron package (DL145) that's inexpensive with base RAM, but another gig of RAM is $1K. I've seen better deals, but the service and support HP offers is attractive. FWIW, I will have easy physical access to the server in the data center.
Ideally (in my naive mind), I think I want a single Opteron that's dual capable, that exandable to many gigs of RAM. In that way, I can add RAM/Processors as needs grow and prices fall.
I'd like to hear what the consensus is on the various elements of server selection; importance of various components, brand name vs. generic, Intel vs. AMD, ATA vs. SCSI, value of extended warranties, etc.
TIA
Rob
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