Cees De Groot wrote:

>So far I haven't heard any complaints. However, as this is community
>money we're spending, I just want to ask a final time (a sort of
>"speak up now or be silent forever" ;-)):
>
>PROPOSAL: We (The Ones That Manage The Paypal Account) will order a
>'Entry' machine with Hetzner, 149 Euro setup cost, 39 Euro per month,
>for a XP3000+, 1G RAM, 160G disk equipped machine with 350GB traffic
>allowance per month.
>  
>

I'm not exactly sure what the arrangement is here but I consider the AMD
AthlonXP to be obsolescent technology at this date.

My counter proposal is an AMD Semperon processor.

My argument is that the semperon allows us to take advantage of the
latest system architecture at negligible extra cost. The principal
advantage of which being better memory bandwidth and MUCH better latency.

As a universal principal, NEVER skimp on the quality of either the
motherboard or the RAM.



For a server machine, the HD is all important.

My counterproposal on the HD is to select two of these:

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,645,00.html

and run them in a RAID 1 configuration.
The down side is that you'll get half the total capacity,
the upside is that hardware reliability (provided the server is
adequately maintained) will be MUCH less of an issue, also read
latencies/throughput should benefit... (though consumer grade RAID
controllers have shown them selves to be rather weak... =\ )

Personal testimonial:

I have two instances of a slightly older version of this exact same
drive ( UDMA/100) and use them in separate computer.  They are darn good
drives. Very well made.

I selected them because they are single platter drives which, in theory,
should mean that their bearings should last longer despite their
relatively high RPM....