Re: Alternatives to Dell?

> Folks,
>
> A lot of people have been having a devilish time with Dell hardware
> lately.
> It seems like the quality control just isn't there on the Dell
servers.
>
> Thing is, some companies are required to use 1st-tier or at least
2nd-tier
> vendors for hardware; they won't home-build.   For those people, what
> vendors
> do others on this list recommend?   What have been your good/bad
> experiences?

Well, there is always HP and (if money is no object) IBM or Sun.

For the budget or performance minded I'd suggest checking out SWT
servers (http://www.swt.com) ...not sure what tier they fit into but
they can get you into a quad Opteron for under 10k$ US, about half what
you would pay for a comparable HP server (and Dell doesn't even offer
Opteron).

Also, if choice of RAID controller is an option, I'd definitely suggest
3ware.  They are cheap, have excellent linux support (including open
source drivers), and have the options you'd expect form a decent raid
controller including a BBU.  I just picked up one of their escalade SATA
controllers and am really impressed with it.

I'd definitely suggest Opteron...cooler, faster, and 64 bit.  Another
reason not to go with Dell.

Merlin