At 08:41 PM 10/2/2000 , you wrote:
would be making a costly mistake in trying to buy hardware today to last
for five years. Computer performance levels and obsolescence rates aren't
slowing down anytime soon, and the new stuff just keeps getting less
expensive as well.
If you need another 10Gb of disk in a year, I *Guarantee* you it Will Be
Cheaper one year from now! (though you might not find drives that small !)
Consider this: If you had bought a "Big & Bad" server in Oct 1995
intending to get five years out of it you might have something like: Dual
Pentium-Pro 133, 196MB RAM, multiple SCSI controllers, four 1.6GB SCSI
drives, and multiple 10BT NICS. This might have set you back about
$20,000. You know how that system rates today? Most new < $1k desktops
with IDE disks will blow it away! Come to think of it, the $580 Vantage
workstations I built almost 12 mos ago probably would :)
Look for expandability in server hardware: a 2nd CPU option, extra drive
bays, addl SCSI controller. But don't buy memory, CPU, or disk that you
won't be needing in the short-term.
-Wayne Cox
>company is small (and we are) the goal should be to get somethingDorothy, there are lots of differing opinions on this, but I think you
>that will carry us for the most part for 5 years. I think we are
would be making a costly mistake in trying to buy hardware today to last
for five years. Computer performance levels and obsolescence rates aren't
slowing down anytime soon, and the new stuff just keeps getting less
expensive as well.
If you need another 10Gb of disk in a year, I *Guarantee* you it Will Be
Cheaper one year from now! (though you might not find drives that small !)
Consider this: If you had bought a "Big & Bad" server in Oct 1995
intending to get five years out of it you might have something like: Dual
Pentium-Pro 133, 196MB RAM, multiple SCSI controllers, four 1.6GB SCSI
drives, and multiple 10BT NICS. This might have set you back about
$20,000. You know how that system rates today? Most new < $1k desktops
with IDE disks will blow it away! Come to think of it, the $580 Vantage
workstations I built almost 12 mos ago probably would :)
Look for expandability in server hardware: a 2nd CPU option, extra drive
bays, addl SCSI controller. But don't buy memory, CPU, or disk that you
won't be needing in the short-term.
-Wayne Cox