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Small Server Bonanza
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August 7, 2003
By Steven Schuchart Jr.
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The small realty-management company that rents space to Network Computing's Green Bay, Wis., Real-World Labs® and NWC Inc. has seven in-office employees and seven computers--with one small server that, shall we say, is not the speediest horse on the track. We got to thinking about this and decided to find out the state-of-the-art of servers sought by the budget-conscious small business or enterprise looking to equip remote offices or workgroups.
We set a price limit of $1,000, with the caveat that the server would be expandable to include a tape drive in the future. Note that this price was without an OS.
Microsoft Windows Server 2000 costs around $800 and is a constant across the board. We understand that $800 for an OS makes many small-business owners hyperventilate, and we sympathize; while the exorbitant cost of licenses isn't
the focus of this article, keep in mind that you may be able to move licenses off old servers.
The alternative is Linux. While we're sure there are ambitious VARs out there ready to slap it on anyone's servers, most small businesses simply don't have the technical chops to deal with Linux.
We also specifically requested machines in a tower or desktop format; most small businesses don't have racks and don't need them.
We invited Acer America, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Lantech PC Systems, MPC Computers LLC (formerly MicronPC), Promicro Systems, Polywell Computers, Sun Microsystems and Toshiba America to meet our challenge. The response was phenomenal, but only five of the vendors--Lantech, Gateway, IBM, Dell and the redoubtable HP--offered servers for less than our price cap.
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If you're a small business looking for a reliable server, or a big business seeking a little server for an outlying office, have we got some boxes for you.
Per our request, we received midtower machines; the largest was the white-box unit from Lantech. All were light and easy to move.
In evaluating systems for this review, we considered many factors. We wanted these machines to be viable for at least three years. Small businesses don't have the capital for a replacement cycle any shorter than that--and frankly, we expect users to keep them until the machines drop dead. Little businesses don't grow into big businesses without being thrifty with hardware.
Other key factors that define "real" servers are reliability, compatibility, manageability and serviceability. Until recently, big-name vendors have found it impossible to cover all these bases and maintain a low price. The white box largely filled that bill.
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?".)
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