[K12OSN] rolling your own

[Mark Gumprecht]

On top of that, if you have a Dell rep and are k12, you could probably 
get that $5.122 unit for about ~ $2,900. When I configure mine, the 
price for small business is between 5k-7k, I send the e-quote to my dell 
rep and usually it comes in between 2.8k - 3.6k.
Mark


Eric Harrison wrote:
> Eric Brown wrote:
>   
>> My existing k12ltsp server isn't quite doing the job it used to.  It's
>> a quad P3 550 MHz, with 3gb ram purchased off ebay 2 years ago.  When
>> 20 kids open firefox and OO, things slow down quite a bit, and firefox
>> may hang on several kids.  I started searching for a new server on
>> E-Bay, where I found a quad 2ghz machine with 8gb ram for $5k.  My
>> principal was reluctant to spend that much money on something used
>> with no warranty.  He said he'd prefer to have me purchase parts and
>> use the assembly of the server as a teaching opportunity (something
>> I've done with workstations in the past).
>>
>> My question for the group is, has anyone done this and encountered
>> problems with some aspect of the machine in an LTSP environment?
>>
>> I'm looking at a Tyan board that will take 4 Opteron dual-core
>> processors, probably 8 gb RAM, 2 gb nics onboard.  I'm not too worried
>> about disk space.  I've only got 4 9gb drives in a raid5 right now,
>> and only 44% is in use for about 60 students.  I'm planning on
>> something like 4 74gb 10,000 rpm drives with 8mb cache.  Since the
>> board is an extended atx, nearly any case that will take it is usually
>> a server case with room for all the drives.
>>
>> Preliminary costs look to be $5k-$6k, which is the ball park I've been
>> given.
>>
>> Anything I'm missing?  Is this a bad thing to do?  Shouldn't this run
>> 20-25 clients very well for some time?  Is it too much (I'm often
>> accused of over-engineering anything I build)?  Any comments welcome.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Eric Brown
>>
>>     
>
>
> The last couple times I've looked, the "big guys" often matched or beat
> what I could build myself.
>
> I just checked Dell and a PowerEdge 2950 with two dual core Xeon 5130's,
> 8G of ram, 4x73G 10k SAS drives, and dual power supplies is $5,122
> (NOTE: select "Small Business", that will get you better prices than
> "Education")
>
> Gateway usually has unbeatable prices on servers, but they are currently
> using the older, slower, power-hungry xeons. You really want a shiny new
> Opteron or 5100-series Xeon.
>
> -Eric
>
> -Eric
>
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>
>   

-- 
Mark Gumprecht
MSAD3
Unity, Maine 04988
gumprechtm at msad3.org

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