Dual 450/500 or Single 733/800 for Server?

[SomeUser23]

Hi,

The new features in Tiger Server are making me think more about picking up a used PowerMac off of eBay, and setting up a server here (I'm currently using a Dual 1.25 MDD G4). Dual 450/500 machines go for a bit less than single 733/800 machines. I'm wondering whether to go with Dual 450/500s, or a single 733/800 G4. I like the dual processors on my current machine, but will it make that much of a difference on a server? Will it make up for the lack of horsepower? Also, I'd like something that's going to last for awhile - will OS X age better on the faster CPUs (ie: will newer versions of the OS drop support of the slower CPUs earlier)?

Anyway, I thought I'd throw it out there, and see what anyone thinks. So far, I'm thinking the single CPU machine is a better investment. But, I could be wrong

Thanks!

 

[Cheryl]

To answer part of your question... each OS X version does drop the older CPUs support. My thinking is support for the G4 will be around for a long while.

As for Dual vs. single... I have no idea. But I am sure some one on this forum does.

 

[mdnky]

I'm running the file/web/db/mail server at our office on a beige G3 300 with 768mb RAM and 10.1.5 right now. Had 10.2 Server edition (pre-release I got from the ADC membership) installed for a few weeks, but couldn't justify the need for buying a full copy of it. 10.1.5 does everything we need it to do right now (after installing Samba 2.2) just fine. The machine runs great with 8 clients (Win2kPro, WinXPPro, Linux, Mac) and hasn't had any issues.

Not sure how much load you'd put on what you're talking about, but if it's just a small time one for a home or home/office then any G4 should do the task just fine. I don't really think the server edition of the OS would be necessary. What exactly are you trying to do with it?

 

[SomeUser23]

I'll probably use it as a fileserver for my network here (Mac, XP Desktop, XP Laptop, possibly set up my old Sun and SGI boxes also). I might install Server just to learn it. I really wish I had a chance to work with OS X at work (I admin Solaris, HP-UX and Linux boxes for the most part), but I don't see that happening. One thing I really want to do is setup some kind of unified login (one account/password for every machine), and centralized home directories. Possibly, I'll use it for streaming mp3s, as well (I really want some way to centralize my mp3s, so I can easily access them from any machine). I'd like to learn how to configure Open Directory, and the new blogging stuff in Tiger looks interesting.