Server choice.

[Mark Kirkwood]

Paul Halliday wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am in the process of building a new database server and after
> pricing up 2 Dell models I thought I would throw this out just to see
> which choice would be better suited for FreeBSD.
> 
> The demands on the system will be mostly network -> disk I/O with a
> hope of best performance on quickly servicing numerous reads; for
> example when reports are generated using the data in the database.
> 
> The 2 choices (we dont have that much money and they have to be Dell)
> are a poweredge 1850 and a poweredge 850.
> 
> 850 specs.
> ----------------
> Procsesor: Pentium(Dual Core) 830 @ 3.0GHz/2X1MB Cache 800MHz FSB
> Memory: 2GB DDR2, 533MHz (2x1GB) Dual ranked DIMMs
> Disks: SATA
> 
> 1850 specs.
> ------------------
> Processors: 2 @ Xeon @ 3.0GHz/2MB Cache 800MHz FSB
> Memory: 2GB DDR2, 400MHz (4x512) Single ranked DIMMs
> Disks: Ultra 320
> 
> The pricing is really close.

Typically for a database server, the IO system is the most important 
single component. Unfortunately this is often the component that is 
skimped on for budget vendor boxes. See if you can find out the details 
for the SATA and SCSI controllers (the SATA particularly as there are 
crappy controllers out there that will just be a misery if you get 
lumbered with them).

I ran Dell servers a few years ago and liked them - but recently 
switched to using Supermicro, as the quality of the more modern Dell 
boxes seems to be ...err... shall we say, 'decreased' :-).

cheers

Mark