Comparing servers?

Hi all, new thread/question.

I went to the local computer fair yesterday. Around here
they hold them twice a month, first and third saturdays.
Someone there was selling some Compaq 6400R's for
$150 each. They seemed fully loaded with both cpus',
lots of ram and lots of hd's in them. Another person was
selling a Dell PowerEdge 2550 I think. It had two
P3-1000's, lots of ram and four hd's in it for $150.
After talking with the sellers for a while I finally learned
that they pretty much got the servers for free from
businesses that had upgraded to new(er) machines and
they just wanted to get rid of them. So they guys just
happened to be in the right place at the right time and
they halled them off. So my general kind of question
is where is the best price point for servers in general?
Old and free, a little newer and more money or expensive
and new? In another thread it seems that one server
was a little over $30 a month in electricity and another
one was around $15 a month in electricity. Yet both
machine were in the free/very little money category.
Electric bills can be a big outlay in the total cost of
ownership. I can build a "server" machine that would
outperform the PL3000 that I have been working on
for a few hundred dollars that would have a warrantee
low power usage, and be much faster and bigger. So
where is the "sweet spot" in the lower end server world?
Not considering software costs since all the machines
would have Linux on them or some other "free" OS.

later,
charles.......

"***** charles" wrote in message
m...
Hi all, new thread/question.

I went to the local computer fair yesterday. Around here
they hold them twice a month, first and third saturdays.
Someone there was selling some Compaq 6400R's for
$150 each. They seemed fully loaded with both cpus',

Nah - Fully loaded = 4 CPUs on a 6400

lots of ram and lots of hd's in them. Another person was
selling a Dell PowerEdge 2550 I think. It had two
P3-1000's, lots of ram and four hd's in it for $150.

If that Dell is a tower model, that will make a nice occasional table for
your front room. I got the wife one of them big Dells on wheels for her
birthday a few years ago. The Dell is still going. (as a table)

After talking with the sellers for a while I finally learned
that they pretty much got the servers for free from
businesses that had upgraded to new(er) machines and
they just wanted to get rid of them. So they guys just
happened to be in the right place at the right time and
they halled them off.

And thought "someone might be dumb enough to pay $150 for this thing!

So my general kind of question
is where is the best price point for servers in general?

Research. Ebay.

Old and free, a little newer and more money or expensive
and new? In another thread it seems that one server
was a little over $30 a month in electricity and another
one was around $15 a month in electricity. Yet both
machine were in the free/very little money category.
Electric bills can be a big outlay in the total cost of
ownership. I can build a "server" machine that would
outperform the PL3000 that I have been working on
for a few hundred dollars that would have a warrantee
low power usage, and be much faster and bigger. So
where is the "sweet spot" in the lower end server world?
Not considering software costs since all the machines
would have Linux on them or some other "free" OS.

It's a very good question. If you need 4 PL3000s to run your office systems
on, it would probably cost you as much over 3 years to buy a single ML350
(new - G4 or G5) and run everything on that. (If needs be as VMs).

But while you would then have a server with a 3 year warranty, you'd also
have a single point of failure.

It makes for an interesting case study - power consumption on older servers
vs advantages of a new server with 3 year parts warranty vs disaster
recovery.

I'd be keen to see if Jeffrey has any ideas on the subject - I believe he
does servers for people on very tight budgets - It's an extremely good
question - When does a new server become more cost effective than an old
one?

"Jez T" wrote in message
...
"***** charles" wrote in message
m...
Hi all, new thread/question.

I went to the local computer fair yesterday. Around here
they hold them twice a month, first and third saturdays.
Someone there was selling some Compaq 6400R's for
$150 each. They seemed fully loaded with both cpus',

Nah - Fully loaded = 4 CPUs on a 6400

I think they had all four cpu's but they were only P3-550's.

lots of ram and lots of hd's in them. Another person was
selling a Dell PowerEdge 2550 I think. It had two
P3-1000's, lots of ram and four hd's in it for $150.

If that Dell is a tower model, that will make a nice occasional table for
your front room. I got the wife one of them big Dells on wheels for her
birthday a few years ago. The Dell is still going. (as a table)

It was a 2U rack mount. The four scsi hd's were on the left
side in the front. The two cpu's were just behind them on
the moutherboard. The two psu's were in the rear on the
right. (looking from front to rear)

After talking with the sellers for a while I finally learned
that they pretty much got the servers for free from
businesses that had upgraded to new(er) machines and
they just wanted to get rid of them. So the guys just
happened to be in the right place at the right time and
they halled them off.

And thought "someone might be dumb enough to pay $150 for this thing!

The "1st Saturday" flea market in Dallas has been going on
since the early 70's, I think. It started out with guys coming
out and selling old radio stuff and ham stuff. Then they
migrated to computer type stuff. Now there are people
out there selling cell time and furnature and jewelry. During
its' hayday there were hundreds of vendors and thousands
of people in a 12 hour period. But now since computer
hardware has gotten so cheap and the Internet is "so
helpfull", the flea market has dwindled down to dozens
of vendors and hundreds of people. Most of the customers
who show up are "harry homeowners" looking for "good
deals". The people selling computer stuff anyway are
usually "in the business". So the sales are usually done
between the seller who knows what it is worth to someone
who thinks he is getting a good deal and is not in the
business. There was a large well known retailer that has
its' headquarters in Houston and it used to go to the 1st
Saturday flea market. It was rumored that they sold in
the neighborhood of $500,000 in a 12 hour period.
That particular company hasn't been attending for several
years. They started using bull horns to pull in customers
and I guess that during the 2am to 6am time period many
people were "urked" so the rumor was that they were
asked to leave.

So my general kind of question
is where is the best price point for servers in general?

Research. Ebay.

Like 1st Saturday, eBay is full of dealers trying to get as
much as possible for older stuff from harry homeowner.

Old and free, a little newer and more money or expensive
and new? In another thread it seems that one server
was a little over $30 a month in electricity and another
one was around $15 a month in electricity. Yet both
machine were in the free/very little money category.
Electric bills can be a big outlay in the total cost of
ownership. I can build a "server" machine that would
outperform the PL3000 that I have been working on
for a few hundred dollars that would have a warrantee
low power usage, and be much faster and bigger. So
where is the "sweet spot" in the lower end server world?
Not considering software costs since all the machines
would have Linux on them or some other "free" OS.

It's a very good question. If you need 4 PL3000s to run your office system
s
on, it would probably cost you as much over 3 years to buy a single ML350
(new - G4 or G5) and run everything on that. (If needs be as VMs).

But while you would then have a server with a 3 year warranty, you'd also
have a single point of failure.

It makes for an interesting case study - power consumption on older
servers
vs advantages of a new server with 3 year parts warranty vs disaster
recovery.

I'd be keen to see if Jeffrey has any ideas on the subject - I believe he
does servers for people on very tight budgets - It's an extremely good
question - When does a new server become more cost effective than an old
one?

One of the major design goals of the newer machines is to be very power
efficient. Some of the newer cpu's can run in normal modes of operation
at 35 watts. With a single cpu/server that would be less electricity than
an ordinary light bulb and next to nothing in sleep mode. I think current/
next gen Opterons will have three differnet power envolopes: 65w, 90w
and 110w. I have seen some motherboard makes make motherboards
that will handle "laptop cpu's". They tend to run real low power. There
was an article the other day that talked about new Pentium type cpu's
that were designed for fanless operation so they could go into media
server type boxes for the living room (no fan or noise). They ran between
600MHz and 1.2GHz and at from 1 to 2 watts. They may not be able
to rip a dvd but they sure have enough power to play movies.

later,
charles.....