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> I suppose it'd be better to frame it as what you can run on a $1k workstation vs. a $10k rackmount server, or something along those lines. That's probably better, since it'll scale a bit better with technological improvements. The problem is, it doesn't have quite the clever sound to it, especially with the numbers and dollars. Now, the other main problem is that, though the cost of a workstation is fairly well-bounded, the cost of that medium-data server can actually vary quite widely, depending on what you need to do with that data (or, I suppose, how long you might want to retain data you don't happen to be doing anything to right at that moment). I suppose that's part of my point, that there's a mis-perception that, because a single server (including its attached storage) can be so expensive, to the tune of many tens of thousands of (US) dollars, that somehow makes it "big" and undesireable, despite its potentially close-to-linear price-to-performance curve compared to those small 1U/2U servers. Never mind doing any reasoned analysis of whether going farther up the single-server capacity/performance axis, where the price curve gets steeper is worth it compared to the cost and complexity of a distributed solution. > are there any resources you'd recommend for learning about what's available in the land of that higher-end rackmount equipment? Sadly, no great tutorials or blogs that I know of. However, I'd recommend taking a look at SuperMicro's complete-server products, primarily because, for most of them, you can find credible barebones pricing with a web search. I expect you already know how to account for other components (primarily of concern for the mobos that take only exotic CPUs). As I alluded in another comment, you might also look into SAS expanders (conveniently also well integrated into some, but far from all, SuperMicro chassis backplanes) and RAID/HBA cards for the direct-attached (but still external) storage. |