Steven J. Schuchart Jr. covers storage and servers for Network Computing. Previously, he worked as a network architect for a general retail firm, a PC and electronics technician, a computer retail store manager and a freelance disc jockey. Write to him at [email protected].
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Wanted: servers Under $1K
If it's been three years or so since you checked out low-priced servers, it's time to go shopping. Many top-tier vendors have made strides in providing reliable, compatible, manageable machines with service options that will let small business owners or IT folks with remote offices or workgroups sleep soundly at night.
We put out a call for servers with street prices under $1,000 (not including OS). We specified that the machine will serve as a file/print server for an office of 10 people, and asked that submissions be expandable with additional RAID storage and a tape backup. Hard drives must offer a minimum 30 GB of storage, the system must include a CD-ROM drive, memory capacities can be no less than 128 MB, and all entries must have at least one 10/100 network port.
We must admit we were unsure what would show up on our doorstep, but we needn't have worried: The systems we received from Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Lantech PC exceeded our expectations. After a battery of performance tests and rating systems on expandability, warranty options, management/configuration, features/options and, of course, price, we pegged HP's
ProLiant ML330 as the shiniest jewel in the group.
To test sub-$1K servers, we used Microsoft Windows 2000 SP3, a Cisco Catalyst 3550 12-port copper Gigabit Ethernet switch, an Avocent 2161 KVM, IOMeter Version 5.10.2003 and Spirent Web Avalanche.
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