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Re: Sun or SuperMicro: Which to choose

Bart van den Heuvel wrote:

Does anybody have something to say about this?
Maybe only the chipsets which one is faster/better the ServerWorks ht1000
of the nForce4?

(reading my own mail i figure that it might be read as a spamming
commercial, IT IS NOT!)

Gr,

Bart



Hi,

I'm not used to use Linux with new hardware :-) But todays new server
hardware is so cheap that i'm gonna buy something. My budget is around
1500 euros and I want a 1u high Opteron 175 dual core server system with
2gb mem and 2 x 180 GB disks. IPMI is a an nice extra but not a reason to
go over the 1500 :-)

In my search i have found 2 systems:

Sun fire X2100: in the config above it's around 1500 euro's
http://www.ahead-it.be/shop/configure.php?id=839

SuperMicro 1U servercase with a SuperMicroH8SSL-i ServerBoard
http://www.ahead-it.be/shop/configure.php?id=829

Both systems feature the same options, The Sun has a nForce4 chipset while
the SuperMicro hase a serverworks ht1000 chip... The SuperMicro has a bit
more options,but i'm unsure if i'm even gonna used them... IPMI is 1/3 (50
eu) cheaper that Suns (150 eu)...

So i guess it's more who's marketting machine to follow? Here's a
benchmark for the SUN. I did not find any for the SuperMicro: Benchmark
This itself may be a reason to choose for the SUN ofcourse. Other reasons
for choosing are faster=beter! Stability is beter... Linux support is a
must (both systems are ok there, at least they claim :-)

Does anyone know the difference between the chipsets? Maybe someone has
both systems? Which would you choose and why?

Thanks....

Bart


Bart,
A lot of the "value" for businesses in buying Sun hardware is that they have an International network of support people and parts warehouses.
If you're running the server for business and need some kind of guaranteed response time, or on-site support, I doubt the SuperMicro can do it.
The Sun, you could buy any number of service plans for, but unsure if they'd support it if you loaded other OS's besides Solaris.
If you're going to spend the money on the Sun, you may just want to stick with their OS.
As someone else mentioned, putting together your own server is always an option too. That makes you the hardware vendor, and support technician. 

  :-)
I wouldn't buy the Sun box for a personal project, but I use lots of Sun gear at work, and wouldn't give up the typical 4 hour on-site replacement contract most of our systems have for the world.
Of course, the metric has to be: Would 4 hours of downtime cost more than the service contract? 

Nate
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