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Where Do You Shop for Server Components?
Devi0s asks: "Along with many other Slashdot readers, I have been building my own PCs for years. I use hardware review sites such as Ars Technica, Tech Report, and Tom's Hardware Guide to research the components and pick out the best, and I use PriceWatch and ResellerRatings to find the best deals and to make sure I am dealing with a reputable vendor. I work in a small consulting firm where money is tight, and I'd like to test the waters with a few ideas of my own. In each case, various servers and external storage enclosures are needed on the cheap that will be pushed to their limits. Are Slashdot readers building their own servers and storage enclosures? What web sites provide the latest news, research, and and comparisons for server hardware? Where do you go to buy server components and vet your vendor?"
Seriously, for everything. That, or ive had lots of luck with small local shops, if i need the parts NOW. there always nice about returning stuff, even if its your fault you broke it -_-;;
There are lots of companies that supply OEMs in my area. Companies like Minta, ZT Group, Stars Micro, and Eastern Data. These companies will gladly set you up with a Net 30 terms account.
Companies like this are great for commodity parts like hard drives, CPUs, and memory.
Building mission critical systems from motherboards that won't be available next year is NOT a good idea.
For systems like that, I either use Intel boards (3 year warranty), or I buy complete systems from Dell. I've even bought stripped down Dell NAS boxes and upgraded the CPU, memory, and hard drives to save some money.
Rolling your own systems makes sense for workstations, but for mission critical servers, i'd only buy from a vendor that can guarantee that parts will be available for the service life of the machine.
-ted
I'm going to add my name to the list of many who say "only newegg". It's true. Their return policy is stellar, and it's a snap to return something under warranty on their web site. Sometime you pay a little more (although not much), but it's always worth it.
There is one exception. Newegg is a stickler to the rules for LCD monitors which say the monitor is not defective unless their is some minimum number of dead pixels. The best place to buy monitors is "MonitorsDirect" who will take a monitor for return within 30 days for any reason. (And I took advantage of that to return a monitor with a single dead subpixel!)
I used ZipZoomFly almost exclusively to build my PC this summer. There's free two day FedEx shipping on tons of stuff, and their prices always seem to be very near or at the top of the list of best-price vendors.
I've never had to return anything to them, so I can't comment there, but do at least check them out next time you're buying PC gear.
This is not an official Fugazi sig.
they're not always the cheapest, but they are almost always near the cheapest.
:-(
their shipping is almost always excellent (order friday morning, get it monday afternoon) and inexpensive shipping compared to most other vendors. they must have some sweet deal with their shippers. newegg's return policy is stellar. they always have a good selection of parts in stock.
their online catalogue is really, really good. instead of just regurgitating vendor material, they take the stuff out of the box and photograph it all over so you see exactly what youre getting. afaik the only vendor who does this.
their catalogue browsing is excellent, they let you browse/search by everthing a DIY'er would want to know. chipset, memory speed, form factor, manufacturer, etc.
a lot of products have user comments and ratings, which can be helpful. a lot of other online vendors ripoff newegg's user comments/ratings, which is amusing.
newegg is one of the best online retailers, if not the best period. highly recommended. online vendors could learn a lot from newegg. it's sad that companies as excellent as newegg are very rare.
Not all of the hardware we've gotten from IBM has been the greatest, but on the whole, the quality of IBM's hardware has been at least as good as anything else out there. What *really* keeps us coming back to IBM, though, is the warranty. Their service is unmatched in the industry.
First off, 3 year onsite warranties are standard on the *vast* majority of IBM servers. Second, they can (and, for us, often are) upgraded to 4-hour (or even 2-hour) response warranties. Third, when I call IBM and tell them that a part is dead, they believe me and ship the part immediately. They do as a few logical questions, but the parts get shipped. I'm on the phone maybe 10 minutes total.
Dell, on the other hand, *often* requires me to talk to half a dozen people and take two or more hours just to get them to send the most inexpensive parts (a desktop CD-ROM incident among *several* comes to mind).
I'm not real worried about the quality of IBM equipment for the next six months or so: I figure that most equipment designs are already in the pipeline. However, I'm keeping a *close* eye on the machines we're getting... And if their warranty terms or responsiveness changes, you can be sure we will be ready with alternatives...
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
Not in the first six pages of results you won't. Maybe further, but I wasted enough time. In fact, the closest thing I found was someone who knew he bought a refurbished item that ended up missing a necessary part. He called NewEgg and they refunded his money entirely, including S&H both ways. Not exactly an overwhelming torrent of fraud stories.
Don't hide behind Google, do your own research and give up a link.
That said - if the OP is going to build his own, he is going to build his own. If that's the case, here is the most important bit of wisdom I have to offer :
Heat Kills.
Computers die for one reason, and one reason only. Heat. I have autopsied well over 100 dead computers (servers, desktops) in the past two decades and with extremely few exceptions the deaths were caused by CPU fan failure (a $10 part), power supply fan failure (a $10 part), or hard drive failure. If I really wanted to push it, I would say the drive failures were heat related, generally due to weak power supply exhaust fans.
Heat kills. It doesn't matter where you buy your parts if you are building your own systems (hey, we all did it early in our careers when money was more scarce than time) then spend the extra eight dollars to get the best CPU fan you can find, get top quality fans pulling air into the machine, and get top quality fans pushing air out of the machine.
Heat kills. Don't overclock your servers, and don't go for the fastest of anything. Insure there is airflow space between your drives and make sure the room your machines are in is cool. Maybe even consider underclocking your CPU - a machine running 80% as fast but giving you an extra two years of uninterrupted uptime is a lot better than a server running 105% and dying at a rate of two hardware failures a year.
If you are hand building, build conservative machines and buy identical spare parts while you still can. Nothing sucks more than having to retire a machine because you can't get spare parts, except replacing a machine because a $10 cheapo fan stopped blowing.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer