🚀 go-pugleaf

<jbartley@teleport.com> writes:

> Folks, my office is considering the purchase of new file servers,
> and I would be gratified to hear from any and all users of the
> Dell PowerEdge XE590 file server, especailly 100mHz & 120mHz
> Pentium users, as well as users of the Compaq Proliant 1500 &
> 2000.

I am familiar with both. Both will do the job. I prefer the Dell
PowerEdge and would buy the Dell if it was my LAN. There are 
several reasons; it's easier to work inside of, and it provides 
more fault tolerance. Their warranty and support of the PowerEdge
machines is superlative.

I have a good Dell PowerEdge tech support story.

Last year I took delivery of a Dell PowerEdge P60 to run a Novell 
3.11 system. I checked that everything had arrived and scheduled a 
Saturday install.

Come Saturday, I opened the Adaptec driver package for the AHA-1740 
and found the Novell driver disk was missing. Adaptec was closed 
for the weekend. I called Dell to see if they'd help and spoke to 
Louis. Dell has PowerEdge support staff available on weekends.

I had no modem on site, but both Louis and I had modems at home. He 
agreed to zip up the drivers and take them home. I'd call late and 
download them from his house. He's going above and beyond here.

I called at 10:30, got the zip file, and thanked him for his great 
assistance.

But when I unzipped the files, the Novell disk drivers were not 
there - it was the contents of the disk I had already, not the one 
I was missing.

I called Louis's house again and sheepishly explained that the 
files seemed to be missing.

Louis said he'd get the right files. He drove into Austin, opened 
the office at Dell, came back home and called me after midnight so 
I could download the files, which I did.

Sunday the installation went perfectly. The users walked in Monday 
with everything working and on schedule.

No other computer company I ever dealt went to such lengths to 
support and take care of a customer like that. The effort Louis 
made to help was extrordinary, particularly since it was 
really an Adaptec glitch. Dell is great.

> We are considering the virtues of two each 2.1GB drives vs. one
> 4.3 GB drive, and have been told that Netware has 'problems'
> with spanning or striping one volume across two physical drives.

Shouldn't be a problem as long as the block sizes are the same.
I'd go with the one larger disk anyway. Spanning drives induces 
nearly twice the chance of failure. Also it'll run cooler, 
easier to cable and support, other small reasons.

>   No*Stop from Non*Stop Networks of NYC
>   REFLECT from CLone Star Software of Cypress, TX
>   StandbyServer32 from Vinca of Orem, UT

No first-hand experience with those.

=============================================
Paul Tichy                     (713) 486-8337
Senior Network Engineer, Phoenix Data Systems
Houston, TX   USA
ptichy@mailserv.phoenix.net
=============================================