Since good server designs have come up in the past, I wanted to point out a "low-cost" server option that has good I/O, and the vendor offers _your_choice_ of not only Fedora Core or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but _also_ CentOS _shipped_ with it! IN-A-NUTSHELL ... Starting at just over $750, you can get a single Socket-939 Opteron 1xx (dual-core is an option) system with up to 4GiB of ECC (but non- registered) DDR SDRAM, up to 4 hot-swap SATA bays (8114 model), one PCI- X slot (perfect for a 3Ware card, which they _do_ support ;-) and dual on-board GbE Broadcom NICs -- all in a 1U rackmount form-factor. The resulting I/O performance is excellent at the price-point for those that want a good server I/O well beyond typical "desktop/workstation" but for around the same price. The 4 hot-swap drive configuration, with a decent amount of RAM, 3Ware card with the 4 drives in RAID-10 or 5, and, most importantly, with CentOS 4.2 shipped runs just a little over $2K. Not really much more than an equivalent "self-assembled desktop" you might be able to put together, while being a heck of a lot better in interconnect configuration and resulting server performance. ASL Monarch 8110/8114/8115 (Left Column): http://www.aslab.com/products/storage/monarch.html NOW THE TECHNOBABLE I'M INFAMOUS FOR ... ASL Monarch Series, 811x with ServerWorks HT1000 Chipset I haven't purchased anything from ASL in years, but back when I was working in the semiconductor industry, the sysadmin at Transmeta turned me on to them. The really know their hardware and Linux compatibility, and they have been shipping products with 3Ware for years. They are now shipping their Monarch 811x series of products (not to be confused with a _separate_ vendor called Monarch Computer Systems ;-) with the Broadcom ServerWorks HT1000 chipset: http://www.broadcom.com/products/Enterprise-Small-Office/SystemI-O-Chips/HT-1000 The ServerWorks HT1000 is rarely found without the HT2000, hence why you typically only find them in dual or quad socket boxen. And that combination competes against serverboards with the AMD8131/8132, which are also typically only found in dual or quad socket boxen. The number of channels, traces, etc... is why it's never cost-effective to make a single processor with an AMD8131. But in the case of the single chip HT1000 on its own -- with dual-GbE NICs and a single PCI-X channel, plusall legacy PC peripherals logic necessary, it _was_ designed to be standalone. So if I had to guess from the specs, the mainboard is the SuperMicro H8SSL-i (although I have not confirmed it): http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/HT1000/H8SSL-i.cfm The H8SSL-i is _not_ available via retail channels, only select OEMs. So you can't just go out and buy it. Unless you just want a 2 SATA drive version (the 8110 or 14" shallow 8115), the 8114 offers up to 4 SATA hot-swap bays in a sub-20" deep 1U rackmount: http://www.aslab.com/products/storage/monarch8114.html They seem to be supporting the latest 3Ware Escalade 9550SX, which it too new to trust IMHO. But if they feel differently, I'd trust them. At the same time, it wouldn't surprise me if they'd sell it with a Escalade 8506 series instead -- which I do trust (especially since with only 4 drives, I'd probably create a RAID-10 volume), and only default to the 9550SX because most customers want RAID-5. -- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- For everything else *COUGH*commercials*COUGH* there's "ManningCard"