sparc power efficiency, but also reliability.

I keep using my Sun systems over PC's for one simple reason - reliability. 
My most power-hungry Sun box is an E450, but I'm also hosting a Compaq 
ProLiant 800 Dual P3-450 system as a server for the non-profit networking 
organisation I'm a member of and it's very expensive on power (so it's 
going tobe replaced with a Dell GX-xxx system soon!).

My SB1000 is a great system - quiet, not expensive power-wise, and it runs 
FCAL disks which have more capabilities for management. The most 
power-hungry item in the machine is probably the Elite-3d m6 framebuffer 
card. 8-)

But I will not throw out old Sun systems unless they are actually broken 
or have a lot of steel corrosion. I run an Ultra 2 as well as the E450 and 
SB1000, plus an SS20 and a Cobalt Raq4 (the web server that the SunShack 
site lives on). Discounting the Compaq which isn't actually my machine, 
the Cobalt is the only non-Sparc system I run myself. There is a PC down 
the other end of the house for the kids to use though. 8-)

My Sun systems run without interruption except for maintenance every 6 
months or so (to clean out dust from power supplies, etc.), or when the 
mains power from the street suppply fails and doesn't come back within 5 
to 10 minutes (which is about as long as my two 3 KVA UPS's will keep 
everything going for).

I would never consider using PC's in any of the 'production' systems I'm 
running, especially not in place of my E450 and Ultra 2 systems as they're 
my two core servers and need 24/7 dependability. Can't get anything like 
that with a PC, though that's in a large part the fault of the 
poor-quality Microsoft OS most people run on their PC's.

Craig.

-- 
Post by Craig Dewick (tm). Web @ "http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick".
Email 2 "[email protected]". SunShack @ "http://www.sunshack.org"
Galleries @ "http://www.sunshack.org/gallery2". Also lots of tech data, etc.
Sun Microsystems webring at "http://n.webring.com/hub?ring=sunmicrosystemsu".