Buying servers

[ronanian]

I've never been involved in choosing and buying servers before. We are replacing some mission-critical servers, and got a quote on some suggested hardware that seems decent. The model quoted to us is certified for our operating system, has way more power than we need, has hot-swap redundant power supplies and of course hard drives, and we're going to order spares.

What else should I look for to make sure we're ordering what's right for us?

[Michael]

A healthy amount of memory. At least 2GB or more on a 32Bit system and 4GB or more on a 64Bit system.

But hardware aside, the other thing to check out is warranty. Is it one, two or three years?

[Paid_Peanuts]

Follow the advice about RAM above.
Ideally go for a quad core processor from Intel - any speed really depending upon its intended use.

But if it were me i would stick with a big name like DELL, HP, IBM and get a 3 year onsite warranty and you shouldn't go too far wrong.

[torledo]

I've never been invovled in choosing and buying servers before. We are replacing some mission-critical servers, and got a quote on some suggested hardware that seems decent. The model quoted to us is certified for our operating system, has way more power than we need, has hot-swap redundant power supplies and of course hard drives, and we're going to order spares.

What else should I look for to make sure we're ordering what's right for us?

What michael said, and i would say three year warrnty is essential. also look at the level of support provided.

If you cluster critical apps it could save you're bacon. After all the best support packages you can get will be 4hrs response. And restoring from backup to bare metal on a spare is going to take a few hours.

[ronanian]

There's definitely enough RAM for us. The warranty is 3 years parts, 1 year labor (on-site), and I think I am comfortable with that. The quote came with a quote for a service contract too, but I'm not sure we need it and my boss would rather not buy it.

[FN-GM]

How much do you have to spend? We have just got a new server this is the spec:
2 x Intel Xeon Quad Core 2.5GHZ
8GB Ram
3 x 120GB Raid 5
2 x 1gps Nics
3 Years 4 hour warranty
That come to a grand total of £1,500 from Dell.

[dhicks]

The model quoted to us is certified for our operating system, has way more power than we need, has hot-swap redundant power supplies and of course hard drives, and we're going to order spares.

Probably add some more network cards, unless you want to use the expansion slots for something in particular. You can aggregate them together into one "big" network connection, handy if one card fails, and they're the sort of thing that are pretty much pennies these days.

--
David Hicks

[pete]

Be prepared to play vendors off against each other. Dell and HP, for example, have been known to provide decent discounts or free upgrades (on top of educational pricing) if they know they're competing with each other.

[ronanian]

Thanks, everyone...I appreciate all the suggestions.