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Sorry, but your setup is nonsense. In two ways:

You do not need as much computing power (CPU and RAM). And you lack other things, since a server has other priorities first:

Redundancy & Saftey/Security

You need to ensure a 24/7 installation. This means, that you need to ensure, power-failure is not an issue. So you need redundant power-supply.

This means 2 PSUs.

Also you need to have a strategy what to do if power goes completly down (city, district, whatever). For this you will need a backup-power-supply. (APC, Belkin, others).
It is not easy to find the right one, And they are not cheap either. You might want to get one that ensures enough power for the period of time you need to safly shut down the server.

Also you need storage-bakups.

I am a friend of tape-backups, however, todays HDD are so cheap and mighty, you might want to get yourself two 160GB drives in swap-mounts and use them for backup. Never leave them in the computers case ! Store them seperately.

RAID1 IS NOT SAFE ! Both machines are within the same machine, on the same controller. A serious electrical damage might render both drives unusable. However, RAID1 is good for redundancy, as first step. You should do it but STILL have a "real" backup. (As in "real" men)

Someone recommended DDS4. This is DAT technology. Very bad. I have a SONY DDS2 streamer myself and most of my backups are seriously damaged (these tapes are very easily damaged).

You should ask others about Onestream or VXA. I do not know them, but they look sympathic to mee. No experience on my side, though.

Now the last part, the case:

Sure, dedicated server stuff is best. 19" rackmount cases, with hot-swappable disks and redundant power-supply units. Get these. If not, then get a Midi-ATX-Server case with case-open warning, that REALLY can be colsed.
The "Casetech 1018" can be and has place for 9 fans, is Midi-ATX sized, 4x 5 1/4 extern, 2x 3 1/2 extern, 4-6x (forgot) 5 1/4 internal.

The case comes with a real lock and key (not those one fits all, that others sell) and once locked you cant open the case without the key at all. It also has chassis-intrusion.

However, this will give a problem: Should you need to exchange the PSU, you need to power the machine down for that time. With specialized rackmount-server cases the additional (redundant) PSU automatically jumps in if needed. That is by design.

So either real server stuff (not cheap) or "home-brew" stuff like:

1x Casetech 1018 case
as many fans as you need to keep it cool
(but for each fan there should be a redundant replacement mounted already, jumping in if its active brother fails)
2x Enermax (or similare) PSU, 360W (one as spare-part)
2-3x HDD (the larger the better)
1x RAID controller (you might consider one with onboard-RAM for cache)
2x HDD for backup purposes
1x streamer (maybe)

Whether to use IDE (cheap) or SCSI RAID (very expensive) I do not know. I would assume, two very fast (Western Digital Special Edition or IBM) drives should suffice but check that they have a large cache (8MB), better get a RAID controller that can have RAM mounted (64MB to 128MB should be fine).

You should take away all possibilities for others to access the system. No VGA, no keyboard, no mouse. Make sure to remove the external USB/Firewire/Audio ports (if "home-brew") (i.e. ot connecting them to the mainboard).
Only admin should be able to connect.

You might want to consider an LCD built-in, that gives the most important status info, for hardware and software.

As OS go for OpenBSD or similare secure.

Last but not least: Todays systems heat up ! Especially if you'd go for 10.000rpm SCSI drives.
And, sarcastically, adding more fans to cool the system down add redundant air-supply for any fire. ;-)

As soon (does not happen often but considering it is

This seems pretty similar to the 'Scotch Tape Drive' where they were getting 10 gigabytes of data onto a roll of adhesive tape using a laser in much the same way.

Jack William Bell

While it's still pricey, it is within the realm of some home users. It's a fantastic drive, rivaling DLT, and it makes a good showing against AIT-2. The tapes will set you back, but backups these days still means tape. DVD in the best case is 9GB. An Ecrix tape can hold 50GB+ and has a higher write speed than DVD. I've dealt with the company before - they are genuinely pro-linux and are all about making a good product at a good price. Ecrix

If you value your data, then a tape backup strategy is important. Use a mix of weekly full and daily incremental/differential backups. That way you can go several generations back and recover from corruption or a virus that slipped in a while ago. Take your tapes off-site, and you'll always be safe.

My itty-bitty biassed preference for SOHO tape backup is VXA from Ecrix, now merged with Exabyte. Great reliable drive and very good restore results...

Here's the link: http://www.ecrix.com/

BTW, speaking of .sigs, Slashdot's added a new feature that makes them less annoying: You can now enable "sig dashes" in your user profile so that all sigs get separated from the body text with a --<BR> or the like. Makes many sigs much less annoying. (Since you're an A.C., I don't suspect it benefits you much, but I thought I'd mention it nonetheless.)

You could also look at an Ecrix drive, about $500 through the LUG deal, which stores 33 GB on an 8mm cartridge costing $65 or so (ouch). I've heard of people punching holes in hi-8 video editing tape (Sony HMEAD E6-120, about $13 per tape at B&H Photo) and getting good results with that. The 120 minute video tape holds about 20 GB since it's shorter than the Ecrix tape. Still, this is kludgy and maybe flaky. Basically all tape media are overpriced right now. CD-R is a lot cheaper, but the capacity is too low to really dub video in style.

It's probably best to just wait for recordable DVD to get cheaper. Recordable DVD is available now, but costs a lot. Consumer products are coming though, and within a year or so it will be like CD-R.

Finally, there's good old analog videotape...

You could also look at an Ecrix drive, about $500 through the LUG deal, which stores 33 GB on an 8mm cartridge costing $65 or so (ouch). I've heard of people punching holes in hi-8 video editing tape (Sony HMEAD E6-120, about $13 per tape at B&H Photo) and getting good results with that. The 120 minute video tape holds about 20 GB since it's shorter than the Ecrix tape. Still, this is kludgy and maybe flaky. Basically all tape media are overpriced right now. CD-R is a lot cheaper, but the capacity is too low to really dub video in style.

It's probably best to just wait for recordable DVD to get cheaper. Recordable DVD is available now, but costs a lot. Consumer products are coming though, and within a year or so it will be like CD-R.

Finally, there's good old analog videotape...

One thing I can say is that fixed hours usually allow you getting payed for overtime. Especially in IT there are moments when one has to pull overtime a lot - during weeks in a row (can you spell "oh-my-god-we-need-to-roll-this-out-by-yesterday-o r-sky-is-going-to-fall -on-us"? I know you can). In many of these cases overtime can be considered as a saction to poor management or clueless managers.

Now, if you're doing flex time - depending on the amount of bogons in PHB's head - you may wind up doing same or more overtime but this time for free. Guess who's winning?

Then again - if they're aware that happy workers are more productive than disgruntled ones - they may well have some clues about efficient management.

On the other hand - flex time vs. fixed time may well be a problem of age and habit. I for one am at the age when I could use some extra-money and so I am willing to do extra-hours without much fuss. It will come the time when personal comfort and age and other problems (like kids and such) get to have higher priority than work and money you get from doing over-time - it is then when you get to appreciate flex time.

Bottom line to this is - if they are bastards and get to take bad decisions that require overtime work - make sure you charge them accordingly. If they continue in error - abandon ship - it doesn't worth your health/time/gray-matter to bother with such lusers anyways. If they are nice however - talk to your manager and see if you can work it out in a way both will be satisfied. Managers in posession of clues are known for their understanding of things and kindess.
Ino!~

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Click here to win a free 66G VXA tape drive

As far as I know - M$ understanding of DHCP is somewhat b0rken. Although I know that the client can send it's hostname to the server - with a M$ based DHCP server you cannot do this. Whether you send the hostname or not to the DHCP server you won't get registered in the DNS. Go figure.

Bottom line is - if you go for DHCP - use some *STANDARD* implementation (which bloody well excludes M$). ISC's DHCP v.3 is a good start for you.

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Click here to win a free 66GB tape drive!

First "point-and-click" interface - Smith & Wesson
And this one's the next step: "point-and-shoot" :)

On the other hand - I guess that somehow wars will become more of a Starcraft thingie. Rather scary IMO.

Click here to win a free tape drive

About your sig.

I read the VXA Sweepstake Official Rules, and the following line made me smile:

Canadian residents must correctly answer a mathematical skill testing question without either human or mechanical aid, if selected as a winner, in order to receive a prize.

I wonder if these things get read, ever.

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