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ServerWorks and Win2K Server

EverStaR

EverStaR

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2024
Messages
195
Thought since so many people were nudging me this way I would startup a thread and see who has some great tips to share.

For those new to the background. I have a couple of Dual Pentium III Intel Server MOBO's and have built out one system and collecting the few last tibits for the other. The suggestion was to try ServerWorks and Win2K Server. They have Dual 1.2666 Processors, and one has 4GB of ram and the other 3GB. Ones a Rev 1 and the other is a Rev 3 SAI2.

So, I have been reading up on ServerWorks, so at 100,000 foot level its a chipset at BareMetal to help manage dual processors, IO, etc. Seems easy enough to implement as I have the original CD with the drivers.

So, I have no large applications that I would consider running on my server. I have Win2K Pro R4 running on one, it runs super nice!

Tell me more and what simple things you would try out if you had such a system. If Win2K already leveraged Dual Processors without ServerWorks, what made ServerWorks such a hot deal back then?

Which version of Win2K Server, Datacenter and Advanced seem like overkill.

Thanks in advance!

E
 
I have W2K server installed on a partition mostly because the Microsoft Backup/Restore for that platform had some strange quirks that prevented its running on standard W2K. Beyond that, nah.
 
Besides having support for Mac shares (which is why I kept A Win2k server box around for ages) you also have built in support for Tape backup drives, and with 3rd party software you had support for Tape drive archives (enclosures with one of more tape drives and a bunch of tapes with automatic loading). SCSI support was pretty good in Win2k server. I just love SCSI tape autoloaders (DLT, LTO, AIT, DAT) and even have one for MO optical drives. I think there was a huge drop off on supporting Parallel printers after Win2k if that matters to you. Many printer venders went bankrupt so they never had XP drivers.
 
You know what might be an interesting project, but I have no idea how you'd manage this?

Back in the day Adobe Premier Pro(think pre-CS stuff) had a "render farm" function which allowed you to offload video post-processing over the network to one or more other systems. So you could hypothetically get your windows 98 PC set up as the workstation and then these two big beefy "servers" as the render nodes.

I think it'd be really interesting to see something like this in operation again, I doubt anyone's configured such a thing for 15+ years. Yes I know modern systems do this as well, but you don't see many retro things like this being done.
 
Lol, interesting idea, sad to say, not trying that one. :) Servers seldom ever interested me. I worked in IT for years, that kind of stuff all day. I do remember when Sprint was closing down its ISP back in the day we were offered some of their servers for our lab. My team was all excited so one guy thought he was going to haul it from the DC to our little basement DC in his pickup truck. The rack was so freaking heavy and his little pickup only came up so high on the Doc. So imagine like a 7-8 foot rack fully loaded with servers trying to be dropped into his pickup. I about broke a rib I was laughing so hard. That the most exciting server story I have.

Ho Humm, I am trying to find something worthwhile and realistic to try out after I get 2K Server Loaded. So far File Server seems like the most obvious, not that I need one, but hey, that's what CF Card OS loads are good for, try and reuse.
 
....you guys tried to move a fully-loaded rack? Yeah, I'd break a rib laughing at that :p You're supposed to un-rack 'em for transit!
 
hunterjwizzard said:
....you guys tried to move a fully-loaded rack? Yeah, I'd break a rib laughing at that :p You're supposed to un-rack 'em for transit!
Click to expand...
They have wheels on them, if they are good racks. I've moved fully loaded racks around in a data center a many times. I've even had some shipped fully loaded from one site to another. Normally really heavy things like storage would come racked halfway or 2/3 just to reduce the risk of damage in transit. I've actually still got a left over anti-static bag that I can fit over an entire 48U rack for shipping. They used to give us tip indicators too, so that we'd know if it wasn't handle well by the trucking company.

Of course I wouldn't try to move one without the right equipment. A full rack can easily weigh 1500lbs or more. I'm not going to try and drop in into a pickup for sure :)
 
Needless to say, they figured it out, they got a real truck and wheeled it on and then off on the other end. Yes, they had wheels.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
....you guys tried to move a fully-loaded rack? Yeah, I'd break a rib laughing at that :p You're supposed to un-rack 'em for transit!
Click to expand...
Yep, many times have I rolled a fully loaded rack. Biggest two were a couple of SGI Altix systems: a 20CPU Altix 3700 and a 32CPU Altix 350. 1,800 lbs for the 3700 and 2,200 for the 350.
 
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