[K12OSN] Minimum Server Config

Henry Hartley henryhartley at westat.com
Mon Sep 19 19:05:22 UTC 2005


I've been asked to design a small computer lab for a non-profit in St.
Vincent.  I'd like to deliver a reasonable LTSP lab but my budget is
currently exactly zero.  Getting donations of virtually any number of
adequate thin client machines is not a problem.  We'll probably end up
soliciting funds for the server and I want to recommend as low-end a
machine as I can get away with.  I don't want to scare them away with a
$3,000 price tag.  We can always do more if we raise more but we need to
start very small.  I'm expecting to need to power only about 10
workstations and I think we can live with the system being on the slow
side, as long as it doesn't lock up for five or ten minutes at a time.

I understand that RAM is probably more important here than CPU speed.
Is AMD going to save me anything over Intel?  Assuming I cannot afford
SCSI drives, would it make sense to get multiple IDE drives and do RAID
in some form or just live with standard IDE drives?  Would a fast PIII
give me better cost/performance as compared to a P4?  I appreciate any
and all advice you can give.  Anyone willing to spec out a machine in
detail earns extra points.

-- 
Henry




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