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http://www.8anet.com/

Look at the .5RU machines. The model number is FA1426-BQ and you can configure them to your own spec.

Newegg

8anet, also known as AcmeMicro

Racks And Stands

Sybercom

TechOnWeb

Amazon (I buy a lot through Amazon because I get a referal kickback for links from my website which is nice)

AccuPC

There are a lot more I'm sure but I can't think of all of them off the top of my head. Oh, I have bought from Monarch Computers also. There are some companies I won't buy from eve again. The main one that comes to mind is Computer Giants. Those folks tried to scam me once on a Maxtor hard drive that went DOA in the first couple of days of testing. Like all the people posting complaints about them on ResellerRatings they tried to con me into paying return shipping to send the DOA drive back. They also said I'd have to pay one of their people to test the drive and confirm it was DOA. Otherwise I'd have to pay to have it sent back to me. Most people find that the drives are OEM or used and that they are selling them as new retail. Yeah, they're a bunch of asshats. That's why merchant review sites are so essential to buying on the Internet. You can't walk into an Internet store, get in a manager's face, and demand your money back for the lemon they sold you when you buy something online. You have to rely on other people's experiences to weed out the crooks. Fortunately for me Maxtor was exceptionally nice about the whole thing and took care of replacing out DOA drive with a brand new replacement. Nice folks @ Maxtor.

Anyhow, I don't always buy the lowest price on Pricewatch and Froogle. I'll buy from a company I know it's going to try and screw me even if I have to pay a little more. I always check eBay before placing an order too. Take for example one of my recent eBay purchases. I priced rack-mount patch cable organizer (wire routing gear) on Froogle. I found a decent model by APC for $25/each. I just happened to search ebay before buying and low and hehold I found Leviton cable organizers for $4.99/each. Each! Ha! Needless to say I bought 4 instead of 1. They are also built extremely well. Always check eBay before buying something online. You may find it for half the price (or less!).

Compromise, roll-your-own, but buy from a specific vendor, preferably one where you can get all of your parts at the same place (with the possible exception of disks, since it seems the cheapest disk vendors don't sell much else). Even if you don't get the best price on every component, you should still be getting systems for less than half of the price for identical systems from IBM, HP, Dell, or (not exactly identical) Apple.

The other major thing to consider, is that different architectures handle I/O better than others. For I/O-bound apps, stick with Opteron systems, and don't skimp on the motherboards. Apple's XServes would probably be the next best, and Intel-based servers at the bottom. AMD's architecture simply can't be beat for I/O, as you will have essentially separate busses for memory and a few I/O busses (unless some are used to link to another CPU).

I've had good luck with 8aNet for servers, NewEgg for networking components, and basically just whichever reputable name has the best price on pricewatch for disks.

Besides that, if you don't have a specific vendor that you are required to order from, you can often find rackmount "server" machines for a fraction of the cost of an IBM, HP, or Dell. We use several 1U and 3U servers where I work that we purchased from 8anet. Aside from the cases (check out the chenbro ones, very nice hot-swap features) and power supplies being more expensive, and motherboards having better management features (go with Supermicro, they have very nice network monitoring utilities, for things like fan speed, power, and temps, as well as expansion for hardware-based monitoring) and the fact that you will probably want registered DRAMs, there is no real difference between a server and a common tower workstation. All of those features which add to the price (hot-swap drives, redundant power supplies, high-end motherboards, and registered memory) are features that are really, REALLY, worth it when you are talking about machines that must be available when you need them.

I believe we paid around $4500 for our 3U P4 2.8GHz 2GB RAM 2.4TB SATA RAID-5 NAS machine with N+1 redundant power supplies, about the same for our 3U Dual Xeon 2.8GHz 4GB RAM 52GB (6 15K rpm 18GB drives total) SCSI U320 RAID-10 database machines with N+1 redundant power supplies, and our 1U P4 2.8GHz 2GB RAM 80GB SATA RAID-1 web servers each run around $1400 (no redundant power supplies). Point is, there ARE other options, you don't have to use low-end hardware just because you can't afford IBM. Besides, why pay for servers from IBM, HP, or Dell, when you can buy two of the same caliber machine for the same amount of money or less. With two machines, you can do things like load balancing, increasing performance and adding redundancy at the same time.

It really doesn't sound like you need to spring for a rackmount system. It will cost you more in the end if you go that route. Still, if you want to, I would not build your own system. You'll drop a couple hundred at least on a rackmount case and $50 to $100 on a PSU for it. The mobo will be at least $300 since it's a rack mount mobo and thus a server mobo. Add in the 1U CPUs and fans and possibly short DIMMs and you'll find you could have spent less money buying a complete system. I recommend you look into the SuperMicro line. They have dozens to choose from. I have a 6013P-T and love it. I bought might from Wendy @ Acmemicro also known as 8anet.com.

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