When I was researching this purchase, I found the amount of information on the Internet very lacking (i.e. only coming from Dell). I had a bit of a scare with some of the hardware I bought for the system, but in the end it all turned out well. Here are some things you may not gather very easily on your own.
- While the manual and purchase page say you can only use two HDDs with the onboard SATA controller (despite picturing 4 SATA plugs), you can actually use four. I am currently running the stock 80GB SATA drive as my root/boot partition, and have my important data (databases/website/etc) split across a 250GB RAID1 array.
- This system is bloody loud when it's powered on. It POSTs with its fans sounding like a jet engine, and quiets down to a freight train during normal operation. I measured it at 60dB SPL from about 2' away. Don't sit near this thing for too long, and definitely don't try to entertain any fantasies of it sitting near your desk. I have it tucked away in the basement (and can still hear it through the heating ducts if the house is sufficiently quiet).
- The case is gigantic. I am just shocked at how deep this case is — 26.55". You can measure it out and try to get a feel for it, but you just won't appreciate this fact until you see it in person. This brings me to my next point...
- This server is very heavy. I was totally unaware of what I was getting myself into. My wife said the box was delivered by a very large guy who used a dolly and had to use a special pneumatic lift to get the server off his truck. The shipping weight is 125 lbs, and the tower itself is around 110 lbs. My back wasn't very happy with me after I lugged this thing across my house and down to the basement all by myself.
- Buy whatever 667MHz FB-DIMMs you can get your hands on, and don't worry about PC5300 vs PC5400. Everything I've read says that there's really no difference other than testing (PC5400 is tested at a higher clock rate), and despite my ordering PC5400 Crucial RAM, it showed up with PC5300 markings on it in the end. I saved at least $100 by not relying purely on configuration tools that ask you what kind of hardware you're buying for — clearly there are different price tags to be expected when you're dealing with actual server hardware. The Mac fanatics should be used to this by now.
- The POST stage takes a very long time. I'm not used to waiting so long to get to the actual boot process. It definitely makes testing my boot scripts a real pain in the butt.
- It's a lot of hardware for the money. Considering what I got for what I spent, I'm very happy with the purchase. There's certainly room for upgrades in the future if I require it, and the case/PSU/fans are all top-notch — definitely beyond what I'd be capable of tracking down if I tried to build this myself.
If you are in the market for one of these bad-boys, and have some questions about it, definitely feel free to leave comments here or fire me an email.
