>Ed,
>
>Just outta curiousity, what convinced you that you need this kind of hoursepower at home? I don't have a server at home, just a dual boot PII 350. But I just got back from the So. Cal. conference and I'm getting close to convincing myself that if I want to try some of these technologies, a server is required.
>

Well, I need a network at home; if for no other reason than to have machines with NT and Win98 up and running at once. I also develop things that run both server-side and client-side under IIS; PWS doesn't cut it, and having several machines makes it easier. And I need a laptop, too - so that "justifies" 4 boxes - my laptop, the NT Server, NT WorkStation and Win98 boxes.

I did reviews of hardware for PC World OnLine when they were on CSi; as a result, a lot of equipment came in my door for evaluation, and in many cases, the vendor was willing to let me buy the eval system for less than retail. You get spoiled quickly. A few of them still "warm puppy" me once in a while (Here - play with this nice warm, friendly puppy for a few days, and let me know what you think...right about when the income tax refund check arrives) when they have a new board they want me to beat on before they start using it, and, "Oh, sure, we'll give you a good price on it!"

It makes sense for me to use the same hardware at home as at the office for my server, since I can try to duplicate problems at home, and test the effects of SPs and the like before infliciting them on my production environment. And if push comes to shove at the office and something truly catastrophic happenes, I have a box that I can take in and use as a working replacement (I don't reformat my drives, just take the main box, so that when I'm done with the box at work, reinstalling it at home is fairly easy.)

The same logic applies to my backup - I could get away with a TR4 solution at home, but I've got about 20 backup sets now, and when media cost is considered, DDS-2 DAT actually is no more expensive. And i can take a backup from work home, or a backup from home to work if necessary - the drives are interchangable (and external).

You don't need dual-channel UW SCSI and multiple processors running NT, but if you want to test multithreaded stuff, you desperately need at least one multiprocessor box running NT to see some kinds of deadlock errors. I certainly don't require a RAID array the vast majority of the time (I work with some horrifically large data sets a few times a year, and the RAID array makes a big difference there.) No desperate need for a 100BaseTX network, but the difference in cost is incredibly small compared to the order of magnitude improvement in network performance.

The new server from PCNut is being looked at for a client rather than my standard server recommendations. They already have a number of low-end servers from da Nut, and before dropping the money on an equivalent NetFinity, they want some numbers. So I'll set it up here and WebCat it to death.

I don't tend to recommend buying mission-critical systems from a small vendor where you aren't willing to stock spares and do your own support.

>>I'm expecting a system in with one; a SuperMicro S2DG2 motherboard (dual Xeon/dual channel UW2 SCSI, 440GX chipset) system that I'm evaluating for a client for use as an application server under NT Server. Should be interesting; it's basically a beefed up high-end workstation from a custom integrator. We'll be comparing it to an IBM NetFinity box and an HP LH3 (read: beating the crap out of it) and it'll probably hang around for a few days after the testing so that I can try it as a workstation.
>>
>>The last two NT servers we put in at Weatherhill are boxes from PCNut; essentially the same box I run here at home for my NT Server (P6DGS motherboard, dual PII/450s, Adaptec 7895 chipset (dual channel UW SCSI) with the Adaptec RAIDPort adapter), and they've been super stable under a wide range of loads. I don't recommend this approach to most of my clients. If I weren't doing the support myself, and couldn't be assured of available identical spares, I wouldn't even look, since the main interest is having a server that stay up and running even when I'm not around to perform the necesary ritual sacrifices.