[geeks] FYI - Low cost Dell Opteron Servers

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Mar 26, 2008, at 00:31 , Joshua Boyd wrote:

> On Mar 25, 2008, at 9:20 PM, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>
>> On Mar 25, 2008, at 17:41 , Lionel Peterson wrote:
>>
>>> Depending on what you want to boot off of, there is an IDE
>>> controller, so you could add an IDE -> Compact Flash adapter[0]
>>> and boot off a CF card, leaving two (or three) HD bays without
>>> touching the floppy bay. For further expansion, I'd look to eSATA
>>> - I just saw some nice IOGear SATA controllers (PCI Express 1x, 2
>>> port external and they support port multipliers) for about $35 at
>>> microcenter.com[1][2].
>>
>> I took the plunge and ordered one with the low end CPU and 4GB of
>> RAM, and the DVD-ROM (I assume it isn't a writer, wonderful if it  
>> is).
>
> When you say low end CPU, do you mean the lowest Opteron, or do you
> mean the Sempron?

It's a 1.8GHz 1210 Opteron.

They don't sell the Sempron with this unit.

The deal is that Dell wanted $250 more for the high end ~3GHz CPU.

You can get it on newegg.com for $160, and it seems to be falling in  
price.

So, I get the low end, and in 6 months upgrade to the best cheaply.

The only downside is I got 4 1GB memory modules, which fills up all of  
the slots.

I rather have gotten a pair of 2GB modules, but the price was a lot  
higher, and Dell's memory was cheaper than what I could find online,  
so I just ordered from them.

The way I see it, it's a server and 4GB is probably plenty for most of  
the work it is capable of.

If I feel pinched, I'll just set up a newegg search on cheap memory  
and buy it when the search triggers.

Patient, packrat, picky... it all pays off, except sometimes the last  
one, when you end up having to settle for a Dell... :)

If this machine will run 24/7, like every other PC I've built myself,  
I'll be happy.


-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com