[HCoop-Discuss] Dedicated servers?

[Adam Megacz]

Adam Chlipala <adamc at hcoop.net> writes:
> The main problem scenario isn't zany shipping accidents, but just the 
> inherent low lifetimes of commodity hardware components.  For instance, 
> more than 1% of hard disks fail each year.

For hard disks, there is RAID.  I trust data-center monkeys to remove
a dead hard drive and replace it with one I fedexed to them (and to
charge me less than $50 for this service).

For everything other than hard drives, I don't recommend buying
commodity components.  Instead, buy a brand known for reliability (IBM
or Sun), but get hardware that's "one generation old" on the used
market.  The performance hit isn't that bad, and the reliability is
more important.

  - a