“Linux is becoming the choice for many ISPs, and to support
the growing demand, a number of vendors offer custom servers
packaged specifically for that market. Among them are Cobalt
Networks, Rebel.com, and NetMachines. In this review, I took a
gander at NetMachines’ Redrak low-profile server and compared it to
my experience with the other vendors. Just to let you know: that
red box is red-hot.”
“The outside of the Redrak is fairly nondescript: three lights
on one side, a speaker vent, a port for a hot-swappable drive, and
a key lock with on and off (green and red) LEDs below it. Most of
the action is on the back or inside.”
“The Redrak is about 2 inches tall or a little more than a 1U
rack unit (1.75 inches) in height. Depending on the spacing of the
components on your rack, you might have to put three Redraks per
four rack unit to accommodate the extra height.”
“The Redrak comes with either a Celeron or Pentium III CPU
ranging in speed from 366 MHz to 500 MHz. There are two slots for
SDRAM DIMMs, allowing up to 512 MB of RAM. The Redrak has one
10/100 Mbps Ethernet port, but a second can be added via the PCI
card slot. The internal drive is optional, and it can hold a single
low-profile drive that’s about 1 inch tall, while the hot-swappable
drive available from NetMachines can be up to 20 GB.”