Topic: Hardware recommendation

[Sidney]

Hello,


  I am wanting to upgrade my e-smith server.
I running SME v5.
I would like to upgrade my motherboard, cpu and add a ide tape drive.

Any suggection on make and model on those parts that will work well with the version of e-smith I am running?


Thanks

[Alexander Ziemann]

Hardware needs go hand in hand with user needs. From my experience you can follow hardware-recommendations in the user manual.

With my 10 User Site (medium file and web-access) a 400 PII/MSI Mainboard with 256 MB ECC-RAM, Symbios U2W SCSI and one 18 GB IBM SCSI DDYS (10.000 RPM) will go completely okay. NO Delays. Fast than the NT4SP6 Server with 512 MB RAM Pentium III/733.

In every Case i would choose a "low power cpu" - means Intel rather than AMD (what a pity) for avoiding thermal problems.

Good rules: More RAM, dont care CPU Power, SCSI better than IDE.

hth
Alex

[Sidney]

Hello Again,

  Will integrated video on a mother board work with smev5?

[Sidney]

Will an AMD processor work ?
if so what type and mhz.

In the user manual it said the seagate stt20000a rev 8a51
and seagate stt32000a would work.
Are there any others?
How well does those tape drive work?


Thanks

[Dan G.]

Integrated video will work.  AMD will work well, but make sure you have adequate cooling.  AMD bang-for-the-buck is excellent, but they die rapidly if you make any mistakes with temperature management.

[Rob Hillis]

Sidney wrote:

> Will an AMD processor work ?
> if so what type and mhz.

Yes, AMD chips work fine.  However, keep in mind that AMD chips do tend to run quite hot, and are prone to die if you suffer a fan failure.  For servers that are on 24 hours a day, Intel processors do seem to be a bit more reliable from the perspective.

Having said that, I still think you can't go past AMD chips for desktop machines - the cost and speed advantages are really giving Intel heartburn.  (no flames, please - I don't want to start a processor flamewar)

> In the user manual it said the seagate stt20000a rev 8a51
> and seagate stt32000a would work.
> Are there any others?
> How well does those tape drive work?

Almost any SCSI tape drive should work fine.  This is one that I have less experience with, so I'll leave it at that.  My own tape drive is a WangDAT Model 3400DX DAT drive, which works fine most of the time. (it's a very secondhand drive - any reliability problems are the fault of the drive, not SME)