Which vendor for FreeBSD Rack-Dense Co-Lo Servers?

[tom_oak at telstra.com]

Hello all,

We are an Australian company looking to buy some rack-dense hardware for a FreeBSD implementation at a colocation facility.

So far we have got some quotes from Dell for:

* Some PowerEdge 1850 servers
* PowerEdge 2850
* PowerVault 220S direct attach storage

Are there any issues with getting the PERC4 RAID to work with FreeBSD with external storage (the PowerVault 220S)? Are there driver issues with their DAT72 tape drive (that comes with the PowerEdge 2850)?

I had a look at FreeBSD Systems' web site, but they are probably not a feasible option (because we need on-site support in Australia).

Which vendor would you recommend out of the big 3 (HP, IBM, Dell)?

Are there any other vendors that come to mind which might be better? Reliability is the major factor guiding us. Thank you for your help.

Tom