[clue-tech] Need new hardware (was two monitors)

[Stephen Lehr]

-----Original Message-----
From: clue-tech-bounces at cluedenver.org
[mailto:clue-tech-bounces at cluedenver.org] On Behalf Of erik at ezolan.com
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 11:55 AM
To: CLUE tech
Subject: Re: [clue-tech] Need new hardware (was two monitors)


> Current client has provided me with a thinkpad T30.  Piece of junk, 
> nice box, but has been dropped on it's head once or twice too many 
> times, the USB ports drop a lot.  Otherwise it does the job.  Still, 
> I've got 3 19" monitors spread all over the home office, I don't 
> really need the dual head
> or care to pay for the power and deal with the extra radiation (I'm
half
> blind already).  I have to play windows to make nice with everybody
else -
> but do the real work on a dinky linux box in back (cygwin and ssh).
>
> So now comes the question:
>
> I need something with a little more oomph in the Linux department.  I 
> do a lot of database work, I'm self-employed (i.e. not a lot of excess

> cash). At least 4 disks and 2GB of RAM.  I've got my eye on a Dell 
> PowerEdge 830 for about $900 (P4 2.8Ghz - single core, 2GB, 1 160GB 
> SATA drive (I'd plug in three more I have here)).  What would the 
> group look at in my shoes?
>
> (The 4 disks is to spread the load across spindles.
>  I am currently using a P3 with 700MB of RAM and three disks.  CPU is 
> 90% idle.  Disk and Memory are bottlenecks)

I'm not sure about getting a Dell as your main, incoming producing PC.
If nothing bad happens, great. But if something does, and it stops
working, you'll be on the phone for 5 hour convincing them that they
need to fix it.

For the technically minded, building your own PC is *easy*. And if
something happens, and you need it to get fixed *right now*, you can run
over to Compusa and pick up the part you need.

If it's your income producing PC, all problems need to be fixed *right
now*, and warranties on parts are far easier to invoke than warranties
on whole machines.

Now, it's possible to go buy a corp-made machine that's reliable and has
a responsive warranty service. But not on a budget.

(Goes off and sees how much it would cost to build a good DB server)

Erik Z

I would second that emotion.  I accepted delivery of some new Dell
equipment this week.  This was my first Dell purchase.  It was a pocket
PC, an Axim X51v, with accessories.  So far a very exasperating
experience.  They sent me the device knowing it was misconfigured and
would appear to die in 24 hours.  I had to spend time I don't have right
now on the phone with their tech support, walking through reconfiguring
the thing, and then more time trying to get a replacement for the wrong
accessory (a part built for a different model) - this is not resolved
and their rep actually hung up on me.

If I wanted a solid server such as you describe, I would probably order
parts and put it together myself (I have built several such).

Steve

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