Your Advice: Low Grade/Cost Server Parts

[Paul Richards]

--On Thursday, September 27, 2001 20:47:29 +0100 Aled Morris
<aledm at qix.co.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, James McGuire wrote:
>=20
>> I'm trying to build myself a low spec FreeBSD server for co-location
>> down south.
>=20
> [Advert Opportunity: I sell co-lo in Telehouse which is fast and cheap!]
>=20
>> I've managed to sum that up at about =A3300 quid - can anyone beat that?
>> Any advice much appreciated.
>=20
> I'm amazed how much you can get ready-built nowadays.  I think it might
> be cheaper now to buy a ready-built than make your own.
>=20
> There a magazine that looks like exchange and mart called I think "Micro
> Mart" that has adverts from fly-by-night PC companies that have really
> good prices.
>=20
> Even the big well known companies are offering good deals, I was thinking
> of replacing my aging home PC with one from Watford Electronics
> (www.watford.co.uk)  Here's an extract from their advert:
>=20
> Celeron 800, MSi motherboard, 128MB PC133 RAM, video and sound onboard,
> 52x CD-ROM, V.92 modem (presumably useless), 10/100 Ethernet, 200W PSU
> mini tower case, floppy disk drive, 20GB HDD (presumably 5200rpm)
>=20
> All that for =A3255.28 + VAT and you get a year's on-site warranty.

I wouldn't buy a consumer product for a mission critical setup (for home
then it's a reasonable risk). You've no idea what the components in the box
are, which is obviously related to the cost.

I'd want to know what the hard drive was at least.

Also, make sure you burn the box in well. Run it hard for several days
because the consumer outlets don't really burn in their products. I'd
recommend that for a business oriented reseller as well though. We burn-in
our server boxes for 48 hours before shipping them and we do get failures
in that time even using quality components.

Paul Richards
FreeBSD Services Ltd
http://www.freebsd-services.com