two bargains? MB+CPU; 1U server

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 11:29:07AM -0400, Mike Kallies wrote:
> Lennart, I'm curious, what kind of rack-mounted machines do you like?

I don't really.  They are all too proproitary, although that's hard to
avoid for rackmount.  In my experience IBM rackmount servers are very
nice and very reliable.  Their hardware also seems to work with linux in
almost every case which has certainly not been the case for Dell hardware.

> In my experience every manufacturer and even every model of rack-mounted
> hardware has its own quirks.  It's best to stick to one manufacturer and
> as few different models as possible.  Every little thing like how to
> report failures on redundant power, how Ethernet devices come up on
> boot, how to use remote management cards, or how the device handles a
> hot swap of a PS/2 keyboard/mouse, fan failures, temperature sensors,
> how to monitor/rebuild your SCSI array, they're all different.

Yep, unfortunately they are all different.

> My point being, the question shouldn't be "should I buy this Dell server
> because it is cheap?" but "how much research do I have to do to put this
> thing in production, how much documentation do I have to write to
> maintain it and if I need more, how much longer can I buy that model of
> device?"
> 
> I don't mind Dell Desktops.  They have lots of non-stanard stuff, but
> you're depending on Dell to honour their warranty... and while I dont'
> deal with them a lot, I found their warranty and warranty service to be
> okay.  I ask for parts.  They send them to me, I send the old ones back.

Their quality is awful compared to a lot of other companies though.

They have also been the worst offender and using proprietary parts.
A Dell desktop can only use a Dell type power supply because apparently
they could save $5 or $10 on their machines by using their own pinout
and powersupply design.  They have shipped hardware with the same Model
name as what you could buy at retail, but with a lot less features.
Again, they saved $10 and the customer got a lot less than they thought
they were payuing for.  Dell sold Matrox video cards in the past with
half the ram of the retail card and with no upgrade socket (which the
retail cards also had).  Did they mention that it was a different Dell
specific model?  Of course not.  Dell purposely rips off their customers.
If you buy from them, it is at your own risk.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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