"If your Sun fails" <-- that's a big IF. It's approaching a possibility
of 0 in my experience.
If performance isn't an issue and stability is your chief goal, none of
this hardware is as stable as a Sun.
On 11/05/2010 01:14 PM, Nick Holland wrote:
quoted text > On 11/05/10 08:46, Felipe Mesquita de Oliveira wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I'm long time far from OpenBSD world, but planning to come back.
>> The plan is to buy an old machine, but, maybe try an new platform, if
>> the
>> investment worths...
>>
>> I have these options, all in the same price range:
>>
>> A) Sun Fire V100 UltraSPARC IIi 650 Mhz - 2x160Gb Hd - 2Gb RAM -
>> CDROM ->
>> US$ 350
>>
>> B) Apple Power PC G4 733 Mhz - 768 Gb RAM - 38Gb HD -> US$ 320,00
>>
>> C) Atlhon 64 X2 +5200, 2 GB RAM, 160Gb HD -> US$ 320,00
>>
>> The idea is to build an server with: WWW/Email/Firewall
>> funcionalities, with
>> better stablity as possible.
>>
>> I don't think that I will need to upgrade for an period, but pieces that
>> have mechanical components (Hd, cooler) may be a problem, if they are
>> platform-exclusive...
>>
>> Thanks for any help, and sorry for any mistake in my English..
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Felipe
>> SP-Brazil
>
> well... Given that choice, I'd go for the Athlon if you need
> performance (you probably won't), or the Sun Fire v100 if you want to
> learn something new.
>
> I'm not fond of MacPPC machines for the very reason many people love
> them: the style. The cute cases are a pain in the butt to deal with
> -- I use a lot of wire rack shelving units, I actually have to
> velcro-tie the tower macppc systems to the rack to keep the bottom
> handle from slipping over the front of the shelf and ending up on the
> floor.
>
> The prices on all of them seem high to me, at least in my market.
> That doesn't mean much. :)
>
> One thing to consider is what happens if the box itself fails.
> OpenBSD is great about moving disks to new hardware in the same
> platform, but if your Sun fails, you need a compatible sun, if your
> MacPPC fails, you need another macppc, if your amd64 fails, you need
> another amd64 (or i386, if you have installed OpenBSD/i386). So, if
> you run on a macppc or sun system, in the event of failure, you will
> need to put your hands on a similar machine quickly. The 160G disks
> in the Sun Fire v100 might hurt you in that regard -- a lot of the Sun
> IDE disk systems are hw limited to 128G, so you won't be able to stick
> your 160G disks in an Ultra5, Ultra10, or a Blade100 should your v100
> fail. If you go with this machine, I'd put smaller disks in it in
> case you have to fall back to a U5/U10.
>
> If you have to do a cross-platform move, it will require restoring
> data from your backup, you can't (in general) mount disks from one
> platform in another and read the data.
>
>
> Nick.
>
--
Joe McDonagh
AIM: YoosingYoonickz
IRC: joe-mac on freenode
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
