Re: NICs - bottleneck (was Re: Dropping the AS/400 as a Web servi ng platform)

["Brad Stone" <brad@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 3 Oct 2001 09:12:21 -0500
 "Wills, Mike N. (TC)" <MNWills@taylorcorp.com> wrote:
> Not necessarily. If I were building a high-availability
> server, I would
> probably get a NIC from a company that is known for their
> quality of their
> network cards, like 3com or Intel. I am not saying a $30
> Linksys or $15
> bargain bin card couldn't be as reliable, what I am
> saying is, their
> reputation says that they have high quality products,
> thus the chances of
> needing to replace it is slimmer.

I agree.  But the 3com cards aren't 1800.  Or even close.
So we're on the same page.  But realistically, the reason
people think 3com cards are so good is because they heard it
on ZDTv.  It's not from experience.  I've used Linksys cards
for the past 4 years with no problems.  My Dlink switch went
out, but it was replaced free with a improved model that has
performed flawlessly for 2 years now.

>
> Still, with the price of computer hardware these days,
> there isn't much of
> an excuse to sell hardware at astronomical prices (a
> 100GB IDE ATA66 hard
> drive sells for $300 USD at Best Buy, how much for that
> much disk space in a
> AS400?). For the price of an AS400, a cluster of Linux
> servers could be
> built that would be just as reliable, and possibly even
> faster in processing
> power, more disk space, and just as secure. Granted, it
> would take up much
> more space and need more cooling.

Bingo!  That's my point.  I'd really like to know what it is
that makes an AS/400 cost so much more (minus the OS, as the
OS is the strong point of the machine).

Brad