However, a variety of problems plague white-box servers. The biggest headache is caused by software vendors, which are understandably loath to admit there might be bugs in their products. So when you run into a problem and call the software company, it will ask what kind of server you have. When you say, "I don't know, it doesn't have a tag," or "Frog Station PC Systems," it will breathe a sigh of relief and blame your hardware. Call your white-box maker, and you'll be told that there's nothing wrong with your hardware and that you should call the software vendor.
At the end of the day, your systems are still down and nobody wants to take responsibility. (For more on life with white boxes, see "Send in the Clones?".)
The system's chipset largely decides the features of a given motherboard. We saw two chipsets in this review: the Intel 845E and the ServerWorks Grand Champion SL.
The Grand Champion SL's features make it superior to the Intel 845E. The 64-bit, 33-MHz bus on the Grand Champion SL gets a theoretical bandwidth of 254 MB per second, not counting command overhead and wait states, while the 32-bit, 33-MHz bus on the Intel 845 gets only a theoretical 127.2 MB per second, again not counting command overhead and wait states.
You should take into account other hardware considerations, such as environmental control systems, beyond chipset and motherboard features. A system must be engineered to compensate for being jammed into a small, hot closet, lest it should suffer premature hardware failure. That means making sure there's enough venting in the case, and enough fans on critical components.
Let's talk about the fans. Believe it or not, there are features that extend the life of this equipment. Ball-bearing fans, at a minimum, are essential. Many "bargain" servers use cheap sleeve-bearing fans, which have a much shorter MTBF (mean time between failures), especially in environments with a lot of dust. Since you probably won't find dustless servers aside from those that have come fresh from the factory, we were pleased that all the systems we received contained ball-bearing fans.
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