A possible reason to prefer an open source server...

Ben Scott dragonhawk at gmail.com
Mon Jul 10 13:38:01 EDT 2006


On 7/10/06, Thomas Charron <twaffle at gmail.com> wrote:
>   Generally, I've had different experiences with Dell servers.  Typically,
> they work very well, and Dell themselves tends to solve problems fairly
> well.

  My experience with Dell servers is roughly the same, although I
would call say "work good enough" rahter than "very well".  They're
not the best, but they are good enough.

>   Now, in defence, you got the cheapest of the cheapcheapcheap servers that
> Dell sells.

  Yah.  The 420 is a re-badged Dell Dimension.  Literally -- the parts
are almost all the same.  The major difference is Dell offers
different software, accessory, support options.  So the OP is
basically running a desktop PC.

  That being said, even a desktop PC should do better than that.  Even
with Compaq/IBM/etc, many of the parts are the same.  It isn't like
Intel makes different CPUs for servers, or Seagate's hard drives are
different for Dell.  Given the history described (massive simultaneous
failure of multiple components), I'd look for things like bad power.
Bad power will kill even the best hardware, and the 420 is far from
"the best".  In particular, the PSU is likely to be more sensitive to
(surprise) bad power.

  I once met an issue with unbalanced grounding in different parts of
a building.  Things appeared fine normally, until power glitched and
the UPS tripped on.  When that happened, we were getting AC voltage
*down the Ethernet line*, causing an instant server crash.  Took
forever to figure that out.

-- Ben



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