When buying a server for a small business value for money normally comes as top priority. When the flyers come through the door, it's only natural to be tempted by a server for £279. However, value for money doesn't often mean buying the cheapest and certainly not in this case. By the time you specify a Dell, IBM or HP machine to anywhere near the same level, including backup hardware + media, RAID (with extra spare disk), equivalent licensed software, delivery and integration with existing network, we are significantly better value than any of the large names in computing! Add to that the numerous advantages of having real people to speak to, who are personally accountable throughout the whole project.
Adept Open Source have a clear policy regarding computer hardware. We only offer machines which we build and would use ourselves. They are specified with as much redundancy as we find practical and cost-efficient — we assume that we are going to be looking after each machine and therefore build with the view that a failure of any part of the machine could cost us in the long run if we have to go on-site and replace it under a maintenance agreement. Each server we supply is specified to suit the tasks required of it.
