My school wasted so much money!

[csubear]

I have a computer networking lab this semester, and i wasn't suprised to see that they hap purchased all dell's for the new lab. What did get me very upset was "server" they bought. I look up the server on dells website and here a the specs.

ONE 2.8 Ghz Xeon
1GB Non-ECC Ram
SCSI RAID w/ 4 * 36GB SCSI HD
ONE goofy 15" LCD
ONE 1000/100/10 Ethernet Card

Total Cost ~$6000 US

I could not belive this. you could get a DUAL G5 XServe, and a DUAL Cluster Node for this price, OR
A DUAL G5 XServe and a 23" apple display.
or A DUAL g5 XServe and a refund on my tution.

And we all know that a DUAL G5 can kick the crap out of a 2.8 Xeon. Yes the Xserve does not have SCSI, but serial ATA is about the same right? XServe G5 has things like 2 1000/100/10 Ethernet cards. PCI-X up .75 TB of storage. ect...

Is my school the only one that make dumb purchased like this?

 

[lind0834]

First off, Dell and the like give huge discounts to schools for direct purchases. If you can find out the actual amount of money spent on this unit, you'll be very lucky... The school might tell you they have $XXXXX worth of computer equipment, but don't take that at face value.

Second if it's a course where you are supposed to learn something that would benefit you most in the real world then they did a good job picking PCs. Every IT department at every place I have ever worked runs on Windows Servers.

Besides that, the course would be over in a week if they were running OS X Server. They'd say, this is how you do it.. it just works. With Windows you'll get, this is how you do it.. these are the many things that can go wrong and how to fix them.

 

[junior]

Originally posted by lind0834
First off, Dell and the like give huge discounts to schools for direct purchases. If you can find out the actual amount of money spent on this unit, you'll be very lucky... The school might tell you they have $XXXXX worth of computer equipment, but don't take that at face value.

Second if it's a course where you are supposed to learn something that would benefit you most in the real world then they did a good job picking PCs. Every IT department at every place I have ever worked runs on Windows Servers.

Besides that, the course would be over in a week if they were running OS X Server. They'd say, this is how you do it.. it just works. With Windows you'll get, this is how you do it.. these are the many things that can go wrong and how to fix them.

But you've gotta admit those specs are lame! Can Xserves handle windows machines as reliably (or non-reliably!) as windows servers?
What would be the disadvantages of getting a Xserve?

 

[csubear]

Ya i bet the did get quite a discount, but with a G5 XServe sitting at $3500, or just a Dual G5 at about $2700 (edu) i think it would of been even, but still the G5 Xserve has way more power and fetures than the dell for (maybe) the same price. As for the windows aspect, for most of the course we are using linux or bsd on the server. Only the clients will have windows installed and not for vary long. We are working mostly with redhat and freebsd.

I guess they assume most of us have windows experince, but not bsd/linux.

 

[csubear]

Originally posted by junior
What would be the disadvantages of getting a Xserve?

None, becuase we are not running win2k or 2003. We could install linux(yellowdog) or bsd(OS X... well it behaves almost like bsd)

 

[tomf87]

Re: My school wasted so much money!

Originally posted by csubear
I have a computer networking lab this semester, and i wasn't suprised to see that they hap purchased all dell's for the new lab. What did get me very upset was "server" they bought. I look up the server on dells website and here a the specs.

ONE 2.8 Ghz Xeon
1GB Non-ECC Ram
SCSI RAID w/ 4 * 36GB SCSI HD
ONE goofy 15" LCD
ONE 1000/100/10 Ethernet Card

Total Cost ~$6000 US

I could not belive this. you could get a DUAL G5 XServe, and a DUAL Cluster Node for this price, OR
A DUAL G5 XServe and a 23" apple display.
or A DUAL g5 XServe and a refund on my tution.

And we all know that a DUAL G5 can kick the crap out of a 2.8 Xeon. Yes the Xserve does not have SCSI, but serial ATA is about the same right? XServe G5 has things like 2 1000/100/10 Ethernet cards. PCI-X up .75 TB of storage. ect...

Is my school the only one that make dumb purchased like this?

I can get that server for roughly $4000 with our discount. Educational facilities may get it cheaper. Also, the hardware RAID will give you more throughput than a software solution.

What you never told us is what the lab is for. No one can give an unbiased opinion unless they know what the purpose of the server is. Is it for testing web development in .NET or is just Windows networking 101? If it is for actual Windows web services development, then an Apple machine won't cut it. If it is standard networking, then I would have opted for the Apple. Also, who is maintaining it, a Windows guru? If so, then it is pretty standard to buy systems you know you can support.

 

[junior]

Then your school made an expensive mistake!
I'm sure by next year, Xserves will be absolutely amazing and far superior to windows/linux servers with either G6 processors or the last generation of G5s pumping away their 3+ghz of power.
I might well be tempted to get one by that time.

 

[junior]

Re: Re: My school wasted so much money!

Originally posted by tomf87
I can get that server for roughly $4000 with our discount. Educational facilities may get it cheaper. Also, the hardware RAID will give you more throughput than a software solution.

What you never told us is what the lab is for. No one can give an unbiased opinion unless they know what the purpose of the server is. Is it for testing web development in .NET or is just Windows networking 101? If it is for actual Windows web services development, then an Apple machine won't cut it. If it is standard networking, then I would have opted for the Apple. Also, who is maintaining it, a Windows guru? If so, then it is pretty standard to buy systems you know you can support.

They're using linux.

 

[csubear]

Re: Re: My school wasted so much money!

Originally posted by tomf87
I can get that server for roughly $4000 with our discount. Educational facilities may get it cheaper. Also, the hardware RAID will give you more throughput than a software solution.

What you never told us is what the lab is for. No one can give an unbiased opinion unless they know what the purpose of the server is. Is it for testing web development in .NET or is just Windows networking 101? If it is for actual Windows web services development, then an Apple machine won't cut it. If it is standard networking, then I would have opted for the Apple. Also, who is maintaining it, a Windows guru? If so, then it is pretty standard to buy systems you know you can support.

I know there are some diff. like the RAID, but i know that you can get an RAID controller from apple for $400. And if they were serious about speed they would something like the XRaid.

As for the purpose i think that it is a lab for unix networking.

As for the admin, its anyones guess. But the admin has zero influnece on this system. In the lab the students set up the system and get everything working.

 

[Lanbrown]

Sorry to say but SCSI is still better. Also, for a computer lab, one 10/100/1000 is more than enough. What a shame, one monitor. I come from an environment where NO server has a monitor. A 23" display would just be a waste to sit there connected to a server. Next, you can't buy a G5 Xserve. Go to Apple and see for yourself, they have not yet shipped.

Also, cost on a website and what a company/school actually pays are two totally different things.

 

[janey]

do you guys realize just how much scsi drives cost?

a good 36 gig scsi hard drive from...oh...Seagate is a few hundred bucks a pop.

I can see why the cost is so high.
and how do you know they didnt get it custom built?

And if you had a single working brain cell you would realize that both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses.
What they might have wanted to do is something that would not work well on a Mac, etc.
So please **** thx.

 

[superbovine]

you just maybe, they wanted to TEACH networking with a computer arch that 90% of the world uses. from a education standpoint, it is in their best intereset to teach from PC.

Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages, by the sound of it you are a fanboy of apple. xserve is the solution for every problem nor is a pc based solution.