[CentOS] Looking for server recommendations

[Benjamin Smith]

We bought 4 AIC computer systems some time ago, 1U P4 systems. 

They were HORRIBLE. CPU fans died quickly, the cases were so flimsy they had 
to be mounted front and back, HDD failures, the list goes on. And their tech 
support left EVERYTHING to be desired. I would NEVER, EVER buy from them 
again. 

I've now bought 4 systems from AVADirect and I've had no issues with them - 
they've worked well, quality products, great performance. I can't comment yet 
on their tech support since we haven't had any issues so far to call them on. 

http://www.avadirect.com/Server_Systems 

What we've bought are 1U Opteron SCSI servers with dual proc and 10k drives, 
and they've been a dream. They're supposed to be hot swap, but I used 
software RAID 1 to set them up. 

-Ben 

On Thursday 12 January 2006 12:03, Troy Engel wrote:
> We're going to replace an older Solaris7/Netbackup/TapeRobot server with
> a new Centos box using backup-to-disk-to-tape (probably using Arkeia).
> The specs are up in the air, but generally:
> 
> - CentOS/RHEL friendly (3Ware SATA? SCSI?)
> - 2U/3U/4U-ish form factor
> - hotswap RAID5
> - dual PS, hotswap a plus
> - USB2.0 port(s) (*)
> 
> To give you an idea of where I'm starting to look, take a gander at this
> page:
> 
> http://www.serversdirect.com/system_dept.asp?dept_id=SD-043
> 
> Obviously we'd like to keep the price low, but realize that a major cost
> will be the 400GB drives. We may only start with 4 or 5 of them and add
> more as time goes (LVM), depends on how the costs break down. We've even
> looked at a Dell 2850 as an option, fyi.
> 
> Anyone have some good ideas? My main concern is choosing a motherboard
> with a disk controller that's robust, tried and true with the current
> standard kernels (or maybe the unsupported branch, but I'd like to stick
> to the stock RPMs).
> 
> thanks!
> -te
> 
> (*) for those wondering, we like jacking in cheap external USB 1TB lacie
> drives, syncing data over to them using rdiff, and carrying offsite
> 
> -- 
> Troy Engel | Systems Engineer
> Fluid, Inc | http://www.fluid.com
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