Ralph Bryce
ralphb at cwgsy.net
Sun Mar 2 08:48:00 CST 2003
Hi Rocky At 22:06 1/3/2003 -0800, you wrote: >I have a client who wants to upgrade the server on his network. There's >about 10 seats on his network, of which maybe 6 are being used. Seems to >me that he could use any good, fast P4 box with 1/2 gig of RAM , >etc. Which is well under $1000 these days from dell, or gateway, with >three years on-site. >A local, old, fairly reputable company in San Diego - Datel - is quoting >him $1457 for and Intel entry level server with a P4 (speed unknown), >512MB RAM, 80GB HD, with DUAL LAN RAID - whatever that is. Plus another >$775 for "WIN 2000 SVR W/5 CLIENT SP3 OEM-CD". Plus something between 5 >and 10 hours of installation charged at a price unspecified in the quote. > >My question is, what is the difference between a box that someone like >Dell calls a server and an ordinary computer? Does he need a server? Buy a "proper" server - check out the prices of Dell servers these days (the 1600SC comes to mind); they're excellent value and come with 2GHz Xeons, ECC RAM (error checking RAM - very important in my view), better cooling, the ability to expand to dual power supplies, multiple hard disks and RAID arrays for data mirroring. The base machines are not that much more than a decent PC. You will need ten client access licenses (CALs) for between 5 and 10 users (CALs come in blocks of five). You should also thoroughly verify your server hard disk integrity before committing data to it. Something like Steve Gibson's Spinrite should do the trick - that will take some considerable time to run a thorough test on your drive - don't underestimate the time for installation and setup (5-10 hours is pretty conservative). And don't forget the UPS and the backup - some backup solutions can cost almost as much as the server, but consider the cost of lost data... HTH Ralph Bryce