[SunHELP] System Upgrade Drive (sort of)

[Bill Bradford]

Folks,

I've always tried to not do "donation drives" or beg for hardware 
contributions, but it's time for an every-few-years upgrade to the
system that does all the heavy lifting for SunHELP, the SunHELP, Geeks,
and Rescue mailing lists, web hosting and email for a few other projects
and non-profit organizations, and of course all of my personal stuff.  I
may end up taking (back) over the hosting of the Sun-Managers list in
the future as well.

I'm in the process of building the next revision of OHNO.MRBILL.NET;
the current machine is more than three years old and I can get a lot
more performance for the same power usage with newer hardware (it's
hosted here at home, on a Comcast Business commercial connection with
static IPs - so the power usage matters!).

Another user of the system has has graciously paid for the new case (an
NZXT Tempest 210) and motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3), and I've got
a new Seasonic 450W power supply here waiting.  

In addition, I've got plenty of HD storage (a pile of 1TB WD RE3 SATA 
drives, and some WD Red 1TB SATA drives), and a pair of SSDs that might
go in for the OS if TRIM is working for RAID-1 md volumes under Debian
by now.

That leaves the last remaining parts - the CPU itself, and RAM.  

I'm going to go for an AMD FX-6300 six-core or FX-8320 eight-core 
processor, and would like to put 32G of RAM (maxing out the board)
if possible.

Anyway - if anyone on these lists would like to donate or contribute
towards the cost of parts to build the new server, let me know.

I've got both CPUs and two 16G RAM kits on my Amazon wish list:

http://wishlist.sunhelp.org

If you would like to contribute, you can:

- Send contributions via PayPal to mrbill at mrbill.net
- Send Amazon gift card codes/credit/etc to the same address, which I'll
   use to buy the parts off Amazon
- Buy the parts outright off my Wish List and Amazon will ship to me
- Contact me for a postal address if you want to send a check or 
   something, or if you happen to have a FX-6300 or 8G DDR3 sticks 
   sitting around unused.

All contributions will be used towards the new server.  If there's
anything left over after a CPU and RAM is purchased, I'll use it to
help pay next month's Comcast Internet bill (which runs around
$150/month for Internet only - I don't have cable TV).

As for the current server - it's going to migrate to being my rsnapshot
"online backups" host, as the current rsnapshot box is being torn down
and rebuilt into a desktop so I can give it to a lady I know whose
husband passed away recently.  She's up to her neck in house repair
bills, and can't afford a decent working computer, so it's the least I
can do.

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
Houston, Texas USA