H/W recommendation for new server? 1

[DaveGoTech]

Can anyone recommend a H/W configuration (not brand names) that can replace our aging server. It's a small company with 5 employees and simple file storage. It has NW 4.1 installed and they want to keep it that way. Are the new processors and drivers able to run on 4.1?
About 3 years ago, I replaced a NW 5 server with a new IBM Pentium 4 server. Although it was not certified for NW, I was able to get it running properly. The only problem I encountered was that NW 5 had issues with hyperthreading, so I just disabled it if I recall. The video, IDE and NIC drivers I got working. I see IBM only has a few single processor servers still available (Intel main board), in either P4 or Celeron. Does anyone have any comments on gettting this to work successfully?

 

[sstoppel]

Jeez, I can't think of any reason to replace hardware with something new but keep a 10-year old OS that 1, has been out of support for years, 2. doesn't process TCP/IP natively, and 3. Uses a file system that is outperformed by NSS like crazy.

Frankly, a 486 server running netware 4.1 should easily handle the file serving needs of 5 people, so why buy new? You could get a nice server on e-bay for about $50.00.

If I were buying something new I would probably go for one of the HP ML-series and buy the NetWare small business suite.

 

[DaveGoTech]

Why? Because it runs perfectly. For 10 years, it has required no reboots, no support and gets the job done! It doesn't need replacement, only the aging hardware, and replacing it with another used piece of equipment doesn't make much sense.

 

[pagy]

Highly unlikely that Netware 4 will run on any new hardware,as an example the last type of Dell I had Netware 4 on was Dell poweredge 2600's and even that was a bit of a fudge job to get it on there and working. And this was 3 or 4 years ago!!

I really don't think Netware 4 will be able to run on any brand name server currently shipping, there just won't be the drivers for it. I'm with sstoppel you might be best having a look on ebay.

Paul



"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein

 

[DaveGoTech]

Thanks for the comments Paul. You're right that they don't provide NW drivers anymore with new servers. As I mentioned, the last server I replaced was 3 years ago. It wasn't that difficult to install drivers for IDE, Video and the NIC. The new IBM servers seem to still include an Intel MB and Broadcom ethernet which the last server had. I thought maybe I can still get it configured properly. No way will I go the route of ebay. Not only are the sellers too unreliable, but replacing an aging, used server with another aging used server defeats the purpose. They want reliability, since this is a remote location, no support on site and can't afford to go down. If buying a new server and installing NW 4.1 won't work, then I don't think an upgrade to NW 6 will work either, due to lack of drivers. So now we are looking at an MS OS upgrade which I know will work with the HW, but I believe is a step backwards from NW. What's a person to do in this situation???

 

[sstoppel]

then I don't think an upgrade to NW 6 will work either, due to lack of drivers."

Not sure I follow you. We use a low-end HP ML360 as our generic offsite meeting NetWare 6.5 server and it has worked flawlessly. A fully patched NW6.5 server running minimal extras is just as stable as NW4.1. Is this a remote office of an existing org that already runs 6.5? The beauty of the 6.5 licensing is that it is per user, not per server so if your org owns it somewhere you can install it for nothing.

 

[marvhuffaker]

<quote>What's a person to do in this situation???</quote>

Follow the NetWare roadmap into the future. Go with OES Linux. It will give you 'NetWare' services but on top of Linux. And even better, EVERY server vendor writes linux drivers. So lack of drivers is not an issue like it is becoming with "NetWare".

This will also get your network up into this century because you won't need IPX anymore.

Furthermore, there are features of OES Linux like iPrint, iFolder, NSS that you can't get and don't have in NetWare 4.x. These are services that are extremely valuable and save lots of time.





Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[DaveGoTech]

Marv - this sounds like the best solution in this case. I am going to look into going this route. Thanks.

 

[marvhuffaker]

We're hosting some events that discuss this very thing, including live demos and questions/answers. Feel free to join the next one...

http://www.redjuju.com/events/index.htm

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com