It's been just over three years since our last hardware upgrade (//www.freelists.org/archives/freelists-news/11-2001/msg00000.html) and our need for it has never been greater. Since 11/2001, we've been running on a custom-built server with 512MB RAM, two PIII/800 cpu's, and some fairly slow storage. The fact that we've been able to continue running on such ancient hardware is, in my opinion, a testament to the quality of the Open Source software we so heavily depend on. Nonetheless, as we've grown, demand for resources has gradually outstripped the capabilities of our hardware. For several months now, I've been researching and shopping for a server that will carry FreeLists for the next few years. While there are several servers that make up the backend here, there's just one that does 90% of the work, so it's got to be a performant, reliable box. I nearly went with Dell for their simplicity, my experience with them (we've already got an 1850 here), and the fact that they're so cheap. Their lack of support for the AMD Opteron CPU (far better than Intel's 64-bit offering) dropped them from the running. Matrix to the rescue: I was put in touch with a nearby VAR called Matrix Integration (http://www.matrixintegration.com), a big HP reseller. While I can't go into detail on the specifics, let's just say this upgrade wouldn't have been possible without them. Their sales people really went to bat for us and put us into a server I never thought we'd be able to afford. </plug> We'll be moving to a roomy HP DL585 with 2 Opteron 850's and 2GB RAM. The server also provides for upgradeability -- I can drop in two more CPU's and another 62GB of memory if we ever need it. So here's the plan: We'll be doing the migration on Saturday the 22nd, starting at about 9am. It's a complicated migration and I do expect there to be bumps along the way, but I plan to have everything operational by mid-afternoon. During that time, of course, FreeLists' services will be unavailable. The rest of the weekend will be available to finding and ironing out any remaining problems that crop up. ============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.