Hardware recommendation for collocation
Hello,
I'm considering purchasing a server to run Debian in a collocation
facility. In the past I've either leased collocated servers, or just
used whatever hardware was handy, but I haven't always been happy with
that approach. I'm sure others have done this, and was hoping to get
their advice and experience on what hardware works best with Debian.
Obviously I need something that is well-supported by Debian. Ideally
I would like something with hardware drive mirroring (RAID 1), with
good suppot from within the OS (so I can run a commandline tool to
manage the RAID and run a cronjob to tell me if anything has gone
wrong. Hot-swap drives would be very handy, too, again as long as
they work well under Linux and Debian.
Also, I've seen that many newer servers offer some kind of "lights-out
management", a special console available over the network which allows
manipulating the server before it's booted, including choosing
alternate boot media, picking which kernel to boot, and toggling the
power. Has anybody worked with these? Do they work well with Debian,
and with a Debian client? Are they worthwhile?
Price is a factor of course, and cheaper is better as long as its
reliable. Under $1k would be ideal, but that may not be possible with
the features I'm looking for.
Beyond that not much matters; any fairly modern server will be fast
enough.
Many of these features are built into motherboards, and it's hard to
tell whether they will work under Linux from just the documentation.
I'm hoping in particular for servers that people are already using and
have good luck with, so the hardware is already known to work.
Thanks for any thoughts!
----Scott.
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