Server Specs?

[oil]

which hardware is better and why?

Dell1950
- Quad Core Xeon 2.33 Ghz
- 4gb RAM
- 2x146 SAS Drives

Dell PowerEdge 860 Server
- Quad Core Xeon 2.4Ghz
- 8GB DDR2-667 ECC RAM
- 2x500 GB SATA Hard Drives, RAID 1

[JACOBKELL]

I would go with second server because of faster cpu and more memory.But also depend which cpu both configurations have,because frequency doesn't say anything,newest processor have less frequency but more cache and some other things which are important and that make them usually better.

[toker]

CPU difference will be almost nothing between those two. In this day and age more and faster ram in your server is King. ECC is also shit if you want a fast server so that's something to consider. The first one if it's not ECC might be a better choice IMHO. But the second could handle much more data flow overall being it has more to work with.

[filthy]

All depends on what your using it for, database? Web? both?

Personally I would go with the 1950 I have a couple of them and they have been rock solid under heavy loads I find the Quad-Core Intel Xeon 53xx line to be a pretty solid performer, and I like SAS drives for server grade hardware.

[pornsprite]

My choice between the two would be the 1950. It is more expandable. They are both entry level servers.

[Peedy]

SAS drives are much faster than SATA. However it depends on your workload if you need them.

[MMarko]

which hardware is better and why?

This really depends on what will be running on it.

Dell1950
- Quad Core Xeon 2.33 Ghz
- 4gb RAM
- 2x146 SAS Drives

First has obviously much faster disk IO and that's only feature better than second one. So if disk IO is not your system bottleneck then choice should be second config. One thing to keep on your mind - bus speed on 2.33ghz cpu is 1333mhz and for 2.4ghz is 1066mhz so overall you might get better memory throughput with 2.33ghz cpu which will give you better overall performance.

[MMarko]

SAS drives are much faster than SATA. However it depends on your workload if you need them.

Define "much". In general they're faster 10%-30%.

[Smart Fred]

I was with a SATA hard drive and my sites din't load correctly.
I first though it was due to a server setup problem but a friend adviced me to move to a SAS one.
Now with a SAS Raid 1 disk, all sites load fine

[xxxtreme]

Form the 2 servers mentioned here, which one would you guys choose to run a bunch of small/medium sites running on Smart Thumbs and Trade Pulse?

[MMarko]

First one should be able to handle more sites (more st and tp crons) since both can handle 100mbit traffic without any issues so traffic is not limiting factor - script and their crons are.

[toker]

Form the 2 servers mentioned here, which one would you guys choose to run a bunch of small/medium sites running on Smart Thumbs and Trade Pulse?

Which ever is cheapest they will both do more then your average webmaster will ever need. The biggest consideration would be how much memory can the server handle if you want a simple upgrade path. When it comes to databases, trade scripts and the likes more memory is going to do far more to improve speed then a slightly faster clock speed. Faster CPU's and memory speeds are primarily marketed for gamers, suckers and performance enthusiasts or those with enough money to piss away on a cure for small penis syndrome.

Not to say there is no place for enterprise class hardware for critical applications such as complex large scale math formulations and business payroll type apps which could benefit from ECC Ram and such. But even Google uses average hardware and more of it due to the economics of getting more bang for the buck with more smaller machines which also provides greater redundancy. You can also have the best processor known to man the fastest ram available and a shit motherboard that makes the entire setup totally worthless.

As a good example my machine far from the best with a mere Core2 processor 4GB of memory and running XP yet it smokes my mothers brand spankin new I5 with 8GB of memory running Win7.