This year, my school has budgeted nearly $9000 for the purchase of a new server for my school. Our current server is a P4 2.4Ghz with 1Gb DDR Ram, and an 80Gb Mirrored Raid as well another 80Gb Hard. Looking at the board it is an MSI 6526 motherboard with a 3-Com offboard network card. It currently runs Windows 2000 Server brilliantly. Based on these specs, it is classes as a Glorified Desktop.
I have a problem though. It is getting towards the end of its 3 year life, and we have planned on its replacement later this year.
When we go to our panel to purchase a server, they keep returning $6000-$7000 servers. P4 Xeon, 2-4Gb Ram, SCSI Hard Drives (thought they had been superseeded by SATA).
The issue I have is that I now have 120 computers, including 16 ibooks and 3 emacs running off this server. They are starting to become a management hassle, especially when it takes me a day to image all 19 of them.
The thought I have is to purchase a considerably upgraded Glorified Desktop (P4 3.6Ghz Socket 775) to replace our current server and also purchase a MacOS X Server. This still adds up to about $6000-$7000 all up, but provides better flexibility.
My Co-ordinator is very keen to purchase the 6000 Single Server. I have managed to successfully delay it for another 3 months.
I look after an elementary school (K-7, of 500 students and 40 staff.
What should I do?
