I'l looking at the Compaq DL320 1Ghz server / 512 Ram, 40 GB 7200 RPM drive, RH 7.1 w. ext 3 file system added.

I get uneasy when I can't find anything wrong with a system and all the reviews are 100% positive - does anyone have one of these and not like *anything* about it?

I'm even curious about any small points.... not that I want to rip it apart (I do disklike Compaq desktops greatly) but I want to have a balanced perspective and so far every comment is 100% positive on these.

From a bit that I've seen (no personal experience), about the only things that I can think of is that the RAM is expensive (probably typical for a 1U system) and no SCSI, but the site would need to be pretty big before the RAM is an issue, and the same for the SCSI issue.

Like most 1U servers, a potential problem would be heat.. however thats RS issue..
Other than that, most compaq servers are pretty stable..

laterz,
palmtree

Thanks for the replies.

I've found a few reviews of the DL320 (e.g. zdnet, linuxworld, etc.).

The ZDnet review rated it poorly, but the actual points against it were not really bad from the standpoint of a first server:
1.) SCSI is an expensive option almost doubling the price
2.) No room for expandibility (single pci slot)
3.) Limited drive bays, not hot swap.

I can't afford SCSI anyway simply because of the market (I could easily afford the hardware one-time, but typically SCSI is reserved for high end servers rather than entry level so the monthly is 2x or more.)

And for a first time server the pci expandibility doesn't matter nor does limited drive bays.... before I wanted more than 2 drives I would want more than 1 server, and could always use the DL320 as a backup server or to handle other tasks like DNS/mail/etc.

So it looks like the DL320 is a pretty stable entry level server... I can't find anything to hold against it, which because it's a Compaq is killing me :D

I heard nothing bad... Compaq is rather good server supplier.. I am just wondering what hdd's they are using.... is it Maxtor/IBM/Western Digital etc? thx

If you order 10 compaqs and than open them up, you might see hard drives from 4 different manufacturers. As long as they are the same spec it doesn't matter to Compaq.

Though I'd like to chime in that all of ours' have come with Maxtors to date and we've gotten in about 300 so far. :D

Do you mean the Maxtor DiamondMax D740X ?

Thanks,

Louis

Sure, it's quite possible that Compaq has changed it's policy or that they've designated a batch just for Rackshack.

In the past, my experience was that both new machines and spare parts for Compaqs were manufacturer-independent. The biggest single batch I dealt with was about 130 machines and we had Fujitsu, Maxtor and WD drives in there...