building servers

[roger schmeits]

Greetings:

We are looking to replace out Proliant 3000 server with something new
faster bigger so forth. currently it is running nt 4.0 and extremely
likely that RH7.3 will become its replacement.

Main function -- file server running Samba.

Looking at P4 500meg RAM, RAID5 (required) across data drives, mirror
o/s. Prefer the 15K RPM drives (opinions anyone on that vs. 10K rpms ?).
Need around 200G of storage.

Looked at Compaq ML370 final price around 9k to 10k.

Dell same thing 7k-8k.


Said to myself why not build you own. Purchase the case/cage for hard
drives, raid controller, power supply, ram, etc. And assembly them
myself.

In the past we have stuck with Compaq Proliant 1600, 3000, and the ML370
and are very happy with that setup. Currently have 10 Compaq in
production.  Have used there Hardware support contact (very pricey) but
over all very good.

Do I dare venture away from that thinking and start building our
servers?? How who I handle hardware failure? (Keep extra parts on
hand?).  Would the savings be enough to justify going down this road?


Thanks.


Roger