[SAC] Server quote/discussions

[Alex Mandel]

Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
> After chatting with Howard, I took a quick stab at spec'ing out a server
> again just to get the ball rolling.  I'm sure it's not perfect, so holler.
> 
> A couple things to note or uncertainties:
> * AMD vs Intel ?
> * I'm not familiar with SAS drives and RAID stuff much in general, so
> not sure if I choose things properly there.
> * Seemed like some 2U options didn't allow as many drives, but maybe 4U
> is not needed?
> * OSL prefers Dell, so the added cost of going with them will encourage
> expedient service from OSL and in their relationship with Dell.
> * Not sure if OSL can get a better deal.
> 
> Comments, changes?  If anyone else is interested in specing out
> something else, I won't be offended :)
> 

I'm close to a final quote now that is within budget and still gets us
great performance. The last minor detail is how much total HD space we need.

Is 500-700GB per server enough or do we need 1.2-1.5 TB per server. This
 decision is swinging the quotes from over our budget to well under. The
other confounding factor is that none of the 146Gb drive options are
both 15K and 6Gb/s while the more expensive 300GB are both fast rpm and
high transfer rate.

The better drives would put us $1500 over budget.

Note Ram is fairly settled now on 48GB per machine, but if we went with
the 146GB 10K 6G/s we could afford 72GB per machine(note that it slower
ram though 800Mhz instead of 1066)

Any opinions?

Thanks,
Alex