From what I have read, one of the most important features of the RaQ is how easy it is to setup.

Since this is the main thing about the whole mac experience, I was wondering how you think they stack up to each other in this and other areas.

I am mainly interested in the web hosting/services possibilities of these two machines, not how they perform as workgroup servers.

Share your views with me.

Thanks.

I can't say anything about the MAC's...

Install of cobalt =

- mounting brackets -> scewdriver...
- insert power cord
- insert UTP
- on the LCD screed: assign IP, SM and GW
- log in by surfing -> http://123.123.123.123
Start adding DNS records, virtual sites,...

No difficult packages to install, CP is allready installed,...

only thing to do: add patches when they come out.
--> is done in the controlpanel, no SSH or telnet needed.

If you have multiple RaQ's:
buy a Control Station
--> control station will monitor all other RaQ's + install packages on multiple servers in seconds...

In my eyes, Cobalt RaQ's are the most simple and stable servers on the market...
If there is a problem, every owner will have the same hardware, os, packages,.. so cobalt will fix the problem and supply a patch.

If you have other problems:
user groups, forums, ...

If you were hosting an xserve in your office, can tolerate downtime when it happens, then go for it. Otherwise a Cobalt or generic Intel based box is something that you can easily get parts for no matter where in the world you are.

I surely would not buy an xserve and fire it off to a co-lo center across the country, knowing it may be the only one in the facility.

Myself I'd stick with the next closest thing and buy a stable intel based platform and put FreeBSD on it.

well to begin with the Raq isn't a workgroup server that would be the Qube

and I think the major downside to the Xserve is that just because it's running OS-X which is more or less (bsd)unix, software will still have to be ported to that system. Where as the Raq can take just about any software writen for Linux without any mjor problems.

The Raq has all kinds of goofy bugs here and there but it still does a good job for what it was built to do, you'll hear people that complain that the Raq is slow and can't handle big sites well what do they expect from a 450mhz chip? I have alot of my low end hosting clients on Raq4's some of them run forums and other such high load apps that need php and sql. The Raq's are holding up well, I can't put a ton of sites on them but they have no problem paying for themselves with a 100 sites on one Raq.

And on a final note you will never have a problem finding someone that knows about Linux to help you with a problem.

I think you can choose like this:

Can you work with Linux very well?


YES: Buy a custom box, install FreeBSD or Redhad and a CP
NO: Go for a RaQ

I agree with that!

Thanks for the info.

I still fell that the integration of hardware and software in the xserve is a really important issue.

With an xserve you get: OSX server operating system(bsd based), OSX server remote management and configuration tool (GUI based to configure everything from apache to dns to mail), mysql, php webojects deployement, java integrated into the os ( I have read somewhere that one of the top java developers is changing platforms to OSX, I think it was james groslin and the article was on java developer's journal), remote monitoring tools to check what is happening fisically with your server( Is it being tampered with, how's the cpu temperature, have the fans slowed down...).

Among many other things...

I am not trying to convince anyone :) , rather I am trying to find out If my belief that this would be the way to go is true.

If you have time check the xserve website and compare it to your RaQ experience and tell me if RaQ has the same possibilities.

Fortunately I have experience with both (at my school, we have XServe, .NET, and Linux servers).

From my experience, simple problems such as a hard drive going out, nic dropping connections, etc, can be fixed quite easily (if you have a custom MAC repair station. Otherwise, you'll need a PC for hard drive reformatting if the drive become too unstable). The management is great and the processors can handle a lot.

The RaQ, on the other hand, are basic Linux PC's with some extra proprietary software and hardware. The processor is made for small to medium sites. It is easy to manage and works great (considering the patches don't break anything).

For someone with little server experience, I would recommend the RaQ. You don't need to know a lot of commands. It's simple to setup and works right out of the box. On the other hand, if you need power and speed, the XServe is going to be your choice.