Hi Guys,

The long awaited RaQ550 was released this morning I would suggest you take a squiz. I am placing an order now :)


Regards,

Samuel Yeats
Ultra Serve Internet

The new appliance is equipped with a 1.26 GHz processor, up to 2 GB of memory and two 80 GB drives with support for RAID 0 and 1 for data redundancy. Additional new features include: a modular software architecture, 2.4 Linux kernel update, enhanced security and system monitoring features, and a new mechanical design for greater access and reliability. A new XFS journaling file system also provides quick fail over recovery should unexpected interruptions occur.

:eek: so cheap its kinda scary

check out the control panel demo, they added alot of options
http://www.sun.com/hardware/serverappliances/raq550/demo.html

How much are they

holy frijole moly

starting at $1699

more info here http://www.cobalt.com/about/press/2002/020513.html


this is gonna kill the value of the Raq4's so if you got some extra ones laying around sell them while you can

im impressed :)

Whooooooooooooooooooooohoooo!!!!!!!!!!

New RaQ!!!
New Software!!!
New Problems!!!
;)

Let's build a party over here...!

Can someone tell me the real price (of an average type... not the cheepest one)


Greetz,

Lode

so cheap its kinda scary Cheaply built or cheaply priced?

This is definitely a step in the right direction.

A few highlights/thoughts:

1) Support for "Pearl" listed in the interactive demo :)

2) MySQL built in

3) increased security: SSH included, looks like some flavor of portsentry and IPTables as well

4) Demo says FP2000 extensions, PDF says FP2002

5) Tomcat included

6) XFS (finally!)

7) 7200rpm drives

8) no backup - only the 3rd party solutions. I guess they gave up.

With minimum configuration of dual 40GB drives, you gotta figure the $1699 buys a nice machine:

1GHz PIII
Dual 40GB
RAM is the only variable... 512 minimum? 256? surely not

I also noticed they will offer a trade-in program for owners of previous RaQ's. If anyone knows of a shipping distributor, please let me know.

Thanks!

Brandon

The price seems to be very good!

But....
Bought last week RAQ4r's ... for a higher price :'(

I hope they come with a backup system that auctally works this time around...:)

Forget it !!! :)

I hope they come with an easy to use CMU utility which backups also MySQL databases and DNS settings...


Greetz

FiberOptic

*drooling* :D

Sorry, no backup utiliity other than the Knox and Legato.

I just spoke with a distributor, the base config seems to be

1Ghz P3
Dual 40GB
256 MB RAM

I'm assuming this is the $1699 package. Nice, but I sure wish that they came with 512MB.

By the way, whoever bought those 4r's for more, you should've shopped around - they've been available a couple of weeks now for less than $1300 NEW. (sorry!)

Brandon

mmmmm They look nice :)

mmmm...

I can't do anything but dream of it ...
:bawling:

If someone has a bit money too mush...
or wants to do an action of goodwill..
Send me a RaQ550 ;)

Originally posted by Sainthax
this is gonna kill the value of the Raq4's so if you got some extra ones laying around sell them while you can
So you're saying that we should sell any RaQ3's we have as well, heh... never really knew what to do with this thing... still don't. :bawling:

the 550's are probably gonna beat up on the XTR sales as well

Raq XTR
850Mhz
256mb ram
2x30gb hard drives
$2599 @ raqport.com

Raq 550
1Ghz
256mb ram
2x40gb hard drives
$1699 cobalt retail

chicken, i'll give you $50 for your RAQ3 =)

Sorry for me being suspicious, but why does sun kill its own market ?

They won't sell a single Raq4/XTR, not to mention the Netra, noone is going to buy a Netra X1 500mhz for $2295,0

:eek:

I don't think they are killing their market. The price of technology is comming down. Look the only thing that makes in so great is the CP and size. They are using PIII's, the price is coming down on them. Not sure what type of HD they are using but 40 or 80 gig drives are fair cheap now days. PC133 Ram is cheap too. They have lowered the cost to produce such a server. Just think how much it cost you to get those parts and then think how much it would probably cost them if they where buying thousands and thousands of said parts.
I may be way off but just a guess that it cost them close to $600 tops to build one. Pretty high profit margin still with out breaking your bank :)
I dont co-locate so for the same price I can build a server much superior hardware wise. I just havn't figured out how to make it with a near idiot proof CP and stuff it all into a 1U rack :eek:
As for the Raq3 I think I will start buying those up. Still a great server for sites that don't require much. If I need something bigger, well I'll just build it. As long as the OS, CP, and Hardware hold up and aren't complete garbage, I think they did a good jod.

Just my 2 cents worth

The price of the hardware is not a factor, its the price of the Raq550 compared to the price of the Raq4 and XTR that will make that they won't sell a single Raq4/XTR.

2 options:

[list=1]
Cobalt doesn't want to sell any RAQ4's and XTR's no more... And will concentrate itself to the raQ550's.
Cobalt will drop the prices of the RaQ4r and RaQ XTR DRASTICALLY
[/list=1]

Originally posted by FiberOptic

Cobalt will drop the prices of the RaQ4r and RaQ XTR DRASTICALLY



and I'll be waiting to buy a few hundred for my datacenter, I could sell them as dedicated servers for very low price's :D

thanks Sun :)

Originally posted by dutchie
The price of the hardware is not a factor, its the price of the Raq550 compared to the price of the Raq4 and XTR that will make that they won't sell a single Raq4/XTR.

Cobalt has done this for years. I am sure Sun will do the same and quickly phase out the RAQ4 to support the 5 (550 - whatever). The XTR is still the only Cobalt box with RAID5 and 4 front removable drives. The RAQ5 is still the same size (maybe 4 inches longer) as the original "pizza boxes". The XTR is a beefier box.

Not sure what type of HD they are using but 40 or 80 gig drives are fair cheap now days.

Demo box was a Seagate.

Another question:

Do you think Cobalt will be able to handle the huge amount of sells...?

the real question is, when will rackshack start offering these for $99 setup and $99 a month with 400gb bandwidth?

i'll place a pre-order right now.

the real question is, when will rackshack start offering these for $99 setup and $99 a month with 400gb bandwidth?

This will be interesting. I know for a fact Cobalt made some huge deals (bargain basement type) before they sold. RS being one of them. Host2own, Dialtone, terabyte, etc... also. In doing so, especially with RS dropping the bottom on the market, it really killed their longtime partners. Many places like Rackspace and others who can not compete with $99.00 servers from Cobalt just stopped buying them because they could not sell them. I really believe many large players will not buy again because of what happened.

Also, these large players were asking cobalt to make their new software avalable to RAQ 2, 3, and 4s for upgrade. From the looks of it and from what I have heard, they are not doing this. At least with vanilla boxes you can upgrade hardware and software. With RAQs, you get what came with it. They have shorter 'shelf lives'.

I think the real interest will be seeing what RS does with ~1000 out of date RAQ3s and 4s. :)

I found more info



Sun Microsystems announces a higher-end addition to its Cobalt line of Linux-powered servers today: up to a 1.26 GHz Pentium processor, two 80-gig hard drives and 2 gigs of SDRAM aimed at small to medium enterprises.



The RaQ 550, with an updated easily configurable Web-based GUI similar to the ones offered on other Cobalt models, will be available June 10 with a price tag of $1,699 to $2,899, depending on the configuration of the machine. The goal of the Web interface is "extreme ease of use."
Glenn Jacklyn, product manager for the RaQ 550, says the edge server is aimed at smaller enterprises using Windows NT boxes. The RaQ 550 will have the Linux 2.4 kernel, the XFS journaling file system, the Apache webserver, and an active monitoring feature for the system. The boxes will also include port-scan detection and buffer overflow protection. Jacklyn also talks up the machine's "tool-free" cover removal.

Jacklyn says the Cobalt team isn't hearing a lot of concerns from companies considering a switch to Linux; instead, companies are asking about how they can avoid Windows' famous security problems. Questions about Linux itself are few, he says.

Mark Melenovsky, the research manager in the server group at IDC says the new higher powered Cobalt server is a positive step for Sun, although the company will still have stiff price competition from companies such as Dell.

With the new RaQ 550, Sun should still spark interest among companies looking for easily configurable servers, Melenovsky says. "I think increasingly the Compaqs and Dells of the world are addressing that," he adds. "But Cobalt should still ride that wave a for a little bit."


http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/05/13/015205.shtml?tid=7

I think the real interest will be seeing what RS does with ~1000 out of date RAQ3s and 4s. :)

I don't think that will be a problem...
If RS sells them for a great price on their site, even without colocation, they'll be sold in a few days.

Another question:

This is definitly the end of the RaQ4...
Nobody(?) will hire any new RaQ4 from RS-like companies.
I'm really worried about the investments of RS-like companies.
It's a risky business... sell at bottom prices...
Nobody knows how long the RaQ's will be "usable"...

i think for small-mid personal hosting, the RAQ4 are certainly viable. the RAQ companies will just have to start lower their prices and offering some sort of "small project dedicated hosting" package with a RAQ4 or something like that. which i've been trying to find for months.

example:

level 1 - small project dedicated
RAQ3 / RAQ4
256 - 512mb RAM
20gb hdd
100gb bandwidth
$59 - $79 per month?
$99 - $200 setup?

level 2 - white box / RAQ55054505450--whatever
normal offering, $99 - $149 or whatever per month

level 3 - compaq / name brand / high power servers

or something to that effect (i'm talking out of my ass on this)

but yeah, i still think there will be a solution, but, the RAQ4 should just drop to a lower package than the white boxes, rather than trying to be on a level field.

/my opinion

Right, just because there's a faster system available won't render my current raq4's useless.
They are up to the task of hosting 100 sites today and will tomorrrow.

I mean, i host 125 sites on a raq4 with 450Mhz, and i will host 125 sites on the 1Gighz server also, especially because the price will remain the same i don't need (and certainly don't want) to put 300 sites on one server.

Nobody knows how long the RaQ's will be "usable"... This type of comment always humors me... a RaQ4 (or even R3!) will still do just as well serving sites as the day it was released. Take a look, the core software on the 550 is almost identical to a patched R3 or R4 - when it comes to light duty web hosting, there's nothing a 550 is going to do for you that a R4 doesn't already do just fine.

You want to sell your 3's? Please let me know. We're going to start offering a lot of them cheap, soon. I'll take as many as I can get :)

Brandon

Leave a few for me (offers by private mail please ) :cartman:

ok chicken. $75 for your RAQ3. :)

$75,50 here !

$99 and not a penny more :D

uh oh. of course you know, this means war...

I'm ready for war, let the packets fly!!

ping -f -s 60000 skylab :D

Chicken.... 100$ each...

An to all the guys who give more:
I'll send you a message with ANTHRAX ...:)

What Apache version does it have?

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=raq550.demo.cobalt.com shows Apache/1.3.20 Sun Cobalt (Unix) mod_jk mod_ssl/2.8.4 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.0.6 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 mod_perl/1.26

It'd be nice if they added Apache 1.3.24 and PHP 4.2.1

One potential problem with the raq 3/4 would be if cobalt does not continue to upgrade packages for them, the software will become obsolete. For example, right now they have frontpage 2000 extensions, when most of the newer servers will have 2002. I don't know what Cobalt's history is with this, in this regard, but I hope they do continue to provide software upgrades as we have some raq 3's still in use that work well otherwise.

The 550 looks good though. I didn't see it mentioned on the documentation, but does this new server have higher site limits (above 200)?

Originally posted by hitspot
One potential problem with the raq 3/4 would be if cobalt does not continue to upgrade packages for them, the software will become obsolete. For example, right now they have frontpage 2000 extensions, when most of the newer servers will have 2002. I don't know what Cobalt's history is with this, in this regard, but I hope they do continue to provide software upgrades as we have some raq 3's still in use that work well otherwise.

The 550 looks good though. I didn't see it mentioned on the documentation, but does this new server have higher site limits (above 200)?
the FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 means frontpage 2002 (FrontPage/4.0 means 2000)
yup, updates for RaQ 3/4 are neded, for example RaQ 4 comes with Apache 1.3.12 and the only update is 1.3.20 which is still obsolete

Anyone know what Apache RaQ 3 comes with?

Originally posted by hitspot

The 550 looks good though. I didn't see it mentioned on the documentation, but does this new server have higher site limits (above 200)?

The RaQ's do not have a software limitation...
You can rus as many sites as you want, depending the server load.

Since the RaQ550 has more performance, he'll be able to run more sites.

Question is how much load each sites requires.
There's a big differcence between high traffic PHP/MySQL sites and simple pure HTML sites...

i was under the impression the RAQs had a limit of 200 or 250 domains period.

i have seen that mentioned an uncountable amount of times throughout forums and remember reading on the cobalt site somewhere about that.


OK CHICKEN!
$125 AND THAT'S MY FINAL OFFER

Ahum...

I know a few people who run 250 sites on a RaQ3...

But...
I don't see the need of running 250+ virtual hosts on a single server... I don't thing any *good* webhosting company will do this.

Perhaps a RaQ550 HAS the power...
we'll see...

i was under the impression the RAQs had a limit of 200 or 250 domains period.
Previous RaQ's have an default (but editable) limit of 250 sites, the 550's do not have this limitation.

Looks great!

Chicken...
126$

i think chicken started ignoring us awhile ago... :)

I don't think so..
Not at all...

He just lets us do for a couple of weeks...
hoping our bid will be around 55000$ each :)

he just wants a new RAQ550 out of the deal!

He just want a Rack FULL of RaQ550's :)

hi

Are the RaQ 550 available in the UK ? if so what is the UK price ?

Thanks
Garry

Yeps,

They WILL be...
But not before the official release date.... June 2002

Errr... well... if it was for sale, I'd post the offer in the advertising forums. I figure you're just being funny (and yes I'm holding out until it reaches 5K ;) ).

Chicken gets more offers on items he isn't trying to sell, than most people here get on items they try to sell.

Heh, well at $126, I'll mount it in the dash of my car. I don't think it would pay to sell it (since it just won't sell for much) and maybe I'll just use it for email or DNS one day.

build an in-car MP3 player with it!! that would be great.



or just sell it to me for $150. honest.


or. dns would be great.

okay...
I' sell "soundcards" for the RaQ3 for ... 1000$ :)

ah. hahah. forgot about the soundcard. you might need that.

so, anyone know anyone announcing they're getting the RAQ550?! (just to keep on topic somewhat).

Waiting arrival of RaQ550...





Waiting...






Still waiting....






Still .... waiting.....






Nope, no RaQ550 arrived yet :(

I just received the Sun pricelist voor the Netherlands,
For those that are intrested:

Prices start at
€2150,- RaQ 550 - 1.0GHz,256MB,1X40GB

The most expensive one is the:
RaQ 550-1.26GHz,1GB,2X80GB
€3650

The cheapest 550 raid costs €2350,-
the cheapest Raq4r costs €1900

I'm going for the cheapest RAID...
When will they be able to deliver them in the netherlands?

I'm from Belgium, but I bought my RaQ's from the netherlands...

Haven't asked yet, but my guess is within a week or 2.
I also think the price will drop a bit since this is the official pricelist from Sun.

I'm really not sure if i will buy it immediatly, i need a new server in a month orso, i guess i'll try to stretch it a bit to see what happens :)

Yeps,

The thing I love most of the RaQ's is that they have their CP, so nothing to worry about...
And if something goes wrong, all other people will counter those problems too, so a patch won't be far away.

Anyway, good luck!
(dutchie, check your PM)