I've heard good things about siliconmechanics.com But as I have yet to purchase from them myself I cannot vouch. They do have a snazzy configurator though.
I have used mostly servers from Dell and Penguin Computing. Both have tool-less rails which makes life immensely easier. I avoid HP because you cannot buy direct and all the VARs I've tried are useless salesman that just waste your time. I've spent hours on the phone with them telling them exactly what I want only to get their quote via email 30 min later for machines that were nothing like what we had *just* discussed in detail. I truly hate those guys. Both Dell and Penguin let you configure online, and you can usually get pretty close to what you're looking for. I generally order them with the fewest/smallest drives possible and source my drives elsewhere to fill them out since they sometimes charge 100-200% premium on disks. As for the desktop vs server component issue, parts are parts--you just have to realize the intended use of them when they were designed. The only parts that really make a distinction IMO are drives. Most SATA drives were originally designed for desktop usage cases (lots of power cycles, and not 24/7), as well as with lower tolerances regarding withstanding vibration and heat. SAS drives are designed for 24/7 use, and to withstand vibration from other drives nearby. I have seen this fact in action with drive arrays--where 7k SATA drives mixed with 15k SAS produce poorer performance due to the vibrations in the chassis. So just be sure to test your setup both for function and performance. However, I have had no problems running SATA drives in servers when not mixed with SAS. There are also cheap network cards--I usually go with a server-class network chip such as Intel or Broadcom if expanding a server's port count, but I'm not convinced it makes that big of a difference unless you're looking for jumbo frame support--and then you need to watch out even more. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
