Where and what to buy: dual proc x86-64 for work

[Wombat]

Hey guys,
I've been asked to purchase a dual-proc Opteron server for work.

We're going for a brutally fast machine, so high-end processors, 2GB of RAM, and on-board SCSI if we can get it.

What are my choices?

Where should I look to buy (yes, buy, it's not worth my wages to assemble it myself) a system?

And we're looking to buy in the next week or two, so I can't wait indefinitely for the nForce4 variants.

Thanks!

[Jammrock]

You could always order a Tyan barebone and slap in some good RAM, CPU and hard drives. Wouldn't take long at all to build.

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/barebone.html

Otherwise you're pretty much stuck with HP, IBM, or a little guy (unless you want a Sun station). This is the official server partner list.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_10080,00.html

One of the little guys to look at is Monarch Computer Systems. They're like Falcon Northwest, but build a broader range of computers and customizations. If you don't want to mess with big ass corporate crap, I would look there.

Jammrock

[Wombat]

I forgot to mention: We're looking for workstations. We swap PCI cards all the time, so something in the mid/full-tower family.

[Fluff]

What is the server going to be used for is another question.

Is redundancy important, e.g. hotswop fans / redundant psu's / hot plug?

Is the extra speed SCSI worth the extra expense?

Do you need RAID?

Consider www.boxxtech.com for opteron workstations

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantml370/benefits-g4.html

For a tower based server compare to a HP ML370 G4

IMHO HP /IBM's offerings in the opteron field are meant generally for calcualtions etc / web caching etc.

Anything mission critical they reccommend intel still.













For dual workstations www.boxxtech.com

[Wombat]

We design storage libraries and storage devices. These machines will be used to push out, pull in, and perform comparisons on as much data as we can push through. Hundreds of MB/s.

But the data itself isn't vital, so it doesn't need to be RAIDed. I said SCSI because we connect to tons of external SCSI devices. The internal drives can be SATA, IDE, SCSI, whatever.

They don't need to be always-on, but they do need to be fairly easy access (they run Adaptec cards one day, QLogic the next).

We already have a couple of dual-Xeon boxes, but we want to diversify the farm a bit for compatibility testing purposes.

[Fluff]

Well looks like HP have no workstation.

http://www.appro.com/product/workstationWH300.asp

Is what I would reccommend if you dont want IBM.

[dshumake]

I would try pcsforeveryone. They have dual opteron workstations. I bought a computer from them for work before. When called on the phone they were helpful in setting up a system.

url to the workstation website:

http://www.pcsforeveryone.com/subcatlist.cfm?superkitcatID=6

dshumake

[dshumake]

If you decide on pcsforeveryone and want a tyan motherboard select the 4400 series. Alternatively, if you know what you want, call them up and tell them how you want it configured.

dshumake

[K6-III]

I think Sun does sell a dual Opteron workstation.

[Wombat]

Yeah, but it's a Solaris box I don't think it will even run Windows or Linux.

[UtwigMU]

It will:
Sun Java Workstation W2100z Operating System

* Solaris 9 HW 4/04 OS for x86 Platforms
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 - x86
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 - AMD64
* SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 for AMD64
* Microsoft Windows XP (WHQL-certified) (customer-provided)


From Sun website.

[agallag]

If it was me, I'd probably go for an IBM IntelliStation A Pro.

Ultimate multiprocessor performance for 32- and 64-bit solutions

-AMD OpteronTM Series 200 processors up to 2.4GHz with 1MB L2 cache, dual-capable
-Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (32-bit) available preloaded
-Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS 3 (64-bit) available preloaded
-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 16GB, dual-channel
-Responsive 2D and 3D graphics choices from NVIDIA®, all 8X AGP with dual-display support
-Choice of SATA or dual-channel Ultra320 SCSI hard disk drives
-Flexible 6-slot x 6-bay minitower

Pretty expensive, but worth it.

Dell Precision workstations are actually quite nice too, but Intel only.