THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

I contacted HP and they said that they did not offer the preinstalled essentials.

I'd want to know what kind of drives they put in that thing.

RAID means they should be enterprise drives - the drive manufacturers make this very clear.  But is HP going to do that in a $900 computer?  Remember when Apple decided to cheap out on Time Capsules, and put WD Green desktop drives in instead of the quoted enterprise-class drives?

I've seen too many RAID arrays fail due to poorly-chosen drives to recommend anything other than what the drive manufacturers themselves deem worthy.

Also, I don't have a lot of confidence in recommending HP computer products anymore, and the reason for that should be obvious.

Preinstalled = trouble

And yes, why can't people seem to be able to differentiate between enterprise and consumer ( server and desktop ) ?

But you have to look at the processors they use:  Ultra low-power mobile processors.

The Athlon II Neo/Turion II Neo's aren't valdated for server use.  No mobile processors from AMD are.  So they've already got one strike against them.

Also, they have two classes of drives in this type of form factor, and they don't spell out what manufacturer models they are.  They call them "midline" and "value".  Not a single reseller will say whether it will be "brand a" or "brand b" either because HP won't say.

Let me put it this way:  I'm a system builder, but I do sell some name brand solutions when manufacturing for me is too costly and not worth the returns.  I've seen some real boneheaded decisions on the part of manufacturers though, and so I take a "glass half empty" view towards other designs until I can be convinced otherwise after inspection.  In some cases, some manufacturers have OUTRIGHT LIED about specifications - see Apple.  In many other cases, OEM's have used known-defective parts that should no longer exist in the supply chain (like Seagate's notoriously bad hard drives).

So I like to do my own validation, and I don't look at the OEM's specs - I go to the component manufacturer to see if the OEM matched their specs.  If the OEM bypasses the component manufacturers specs, the solution can't pass validation, plain and simple.

I don't know if you ever bought a Mini, where the car dealer gave you a Chevette motor, but didn't tell you, and yet still certified it as a "Mini", but you found out later about the motor, how would you feel about that?

Joe,

    Very good points. The microserver is really more consumer than professional.

Years ago Compaq, HP and IBM used to have training sessions for their new servers that were not available to most people. I went to some of those sessions. They would cover all aspects of the design right down to why they used this or that chip for I/O or that type of a connector.  It would take all day. You could ask questions. Some of it was marketing to get you to choose thier servers over another companies but at least it was technical marketing and you came out knowing the differences. I don't know if they do that sort of thing anymore. I guess now you can find most of that info on a companies web site. But you can't ask questions.

If the micro-server is consumer-based, why doesn't it ship with WHS instead of SBSe then?  ;)

Honestly, there are some times when I look at component makers with the same disregard.  You have Intel and AMD, both making CPU's for both consumer and server platforms with identical feature sets in the 1P server chips to consumer chips, but with different socket types.  I find that aggravating, especially when the 1P server processors often don't come with HSF's, and the design is different from the consumer mount, so you can't just use an HSF from a consumer CPU.  

Also, you have a company like Supermicro, that make server-feature motherboards with CPU's that were never designed for that use - the Atom boards.  Intel doesn't like that, even though they obviously knew what Supermicro was going to do with their shipment of Atom's.  I like Mini-ITX.  Give me a real Opteron or Xeon board in Mini-ITX though so that I can build a good system with lots of cheap enterprise SATA drives in one of those NAS-like hot-swap capable enclosures!!  It's not like the thermals on those chips are any different from a desktop CPU that already has Mini ITX motherboard options!  (At least Supermicro makes 1P microATX boards for Opteron, so there's that at least)

It's called Capitalism Joe, Capitalism. Fantastic, isn't it ?

When Intel and AMD make separate 1P server CPU's that have the same features as a desktop CPU, it adds cost to manufacturing, and it just doesn't make any sense.  If there was only one CPU for desktop AND server use, it means CPU vendors can cut the cost of manufacturing because there's only one package to make.  Who cares if a server motherboard accepts only a server CPU?  It actually costs the manufacturer MORE to have 2 separate ones.  The money to be made is in the differences between server and desktop motherboard features though.  It should be one CPU, one socket type, and one HSF design (and desktop boxed CPU's always come with a stock HSF).  The variations should be in the actual technology, not in some synthetic change in form factor.  Aside from the socket type, the only difference is in branding - and that also costs money.

I'd also like to see some of these integrated GPU features come to server chips too.  Maybe for RemoteFX, but more importantly, for media transcoding.