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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?"
Time is money. Lots of it and as any person who has done any hiring (especially in small to mid size businesses) will tell you, personnel costs are among the largest financial obligations you will have bar none. Therefore, I actually find it more cost effective to 1) perform an analysis to best determine needs based on anticipated traffic (Slashdottings aside) [GRIN], and 2) purchase a complete system from a vendor based upon the outcomes of the analysis. Spending time rolling your own hardware can be cost effective in some circumstances, but do not overlook the time you are spending on this project. A simple cost analysis should suffice.
Also, if needs are low, common desktop hardware (even outdated hardware) can meet needs sufficiently without the need for a Server OS. (I have an old G3 iMac running a desktop OS X serving up one of the oldest online textbooks available on the Internet, Webvision which routinely serves up about 45,000 hits/day of graphics intensive webpages). For larger needs or e-commerce for medium to large businesses, you obviously need something more substantial. After looking at solutions from Dell, Sun and SGI, and a local whitebox builder, believe it or not, Apple makes some pretty nice servers servers at very cost competitive points. We will likely be picking up a couple in the near future for some very heavy data intensive work we are embarking on. The nice thing about these solutions is that we can develop the code cross platform from some Linux workstations and fairly simply deploy on the Xserves.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
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 -_-;;
Exclusively from Newegg. They are unmatched.
If a million monkeys randomly pounded on keyboards, they would all log into AOL.
ibm.com
Of course, you can go to an IBM reseller and get a year old solution for about 25% of the original cost for a machine. Why mess around when you're building a server. Ostensibly a company will be using this to either make money directly or support the making of money in some other area of the business, so why mess around?
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
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!)
We have a Dell corporate account and the deals you can get there are amazing provided you're willing to wheel and deal and threaten a bit. Usually you can get upgrades to the server or a nice switch thrown in. I don't buy Dell on the desktop but their servers are good gear and priced right. Plus haggling is fun and I don't have the time to build my own servers.
This guy is way out there
I go to the local Fry's and Best Buy and and get what their very knowledgeable staffs recommend.
Quote:
"...various servers and external storage enclosures are needed on the cheap that will be pushed to their limits."
You are about to discover why server vendors are still in business, even though commodity parts just reach new lows in pricing.
I wont bust your balls, or tits(?) over trying to do IT on the cheap.
However, you will need to make some choices.
Cheaper hardware will only buy you hardware designed for consumers ( do you recall the IBM Deskstar models that had a monthly hour limit of usage ? ).
If you need to buy hardware that wont blow up under load, and you can get replacement parts for ( especially outside of business hours ) you should stop and go back and review products from IBM, Dell, and Compaq.
Recognize these vendors call it a server since they do test these things under load, test compatibility under cirumstances that your describing, and provide service so that your consulting shop wont be twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to run down to the local swap shop to get a new motherboard.
Those of us responsible for maintaining services ( DB, Email, etc ) dont build servers unless our backs are against the wall. Even then, we buy HW from the same vendors who make the servers.
Why ? Our job isnt to build hardware. Its to make email flow reliably, keep end users data available whenever management is willing to pay for it, hopefully you get the drift.
Since your in a small consulting shop, the big goals for the shop is growing clientele. They money will be well spent, when you and whomever else is responsible for the backoffice equipment ( in a small group everyone wears lots of hats ) spends your time building the customer base.
There will be lots of folks here who will say, sure go do this, this and this.
Hopefuly, a few will try to influence you as I have, and suggest you use a Cisco grade product, versus Linksys.
I see mostly American sources for parts. Anyone know of good Canadian suppliers?
...on what you're looking for. I'm no expert on putting together big systems for enterprise environments, so I'll leave that type of reply to others.
However, I do know a great deal about digging around on the surplus market. If you're looking to put together your own servers, perhaps for self-hosting of your Internet presence, you can save tons of $$ by hitting up used-computer stores and electronic surplus places.
As just one example: My former employer (Boeing) retired a number of enterprise-class servers a few years back. Among these was a Compaq ProLiant 6500, tricked out with triple Pentium Pro 200 CPU's, twin redundant power supplies, a RAID controller, two-port Ethernet card, and the front-panel diagnostic display.
That system probably had a five-figure price tag when it was first sold. I picked it up for about $150, and spent another $100 or so on enough nine-gigger drives to create a RAID-5 stack. I added on another external RAID bay, with drives, for about another $100, and had one heck of a reliable FTP archive and database system for less than $400.
At the risk of Slashdotting my own site, I've got listings of electronic and computer surplus places in California, Oregon, and Washington up at this link.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
No, seriously.
Ever since I saw a story here about Lego case mods, I've been building my RAID array enclosures completely out of them. Now, I swear by them: cheap and modular.
Duplo will due in a pinch, but they really only work well with larger 5.25" half-height or full-height drives.
HTH
I just recently bought some rack mount equipment from electroseller.com and had a really good experience. The prices were really good and the service was great.
Plus, they have a nice way of showing you what power supplies and rail kits will work with the case that you are looking at.
I called their customer service to ask a question and someone (a real person) picked up the phone on the first ring. Now that's service.
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.
ncix is probably the best Canadian online store for this sort of thing.
Two part answer. First, I really think its a bad idea to hand build a server that you expect to push. I'm not even in IT but I know just from home systems how much downtime can result from one bad part needing an RMA. Even worse is having to do tech support for your friends or family. I highly reccomend you get your server from a reputable vendor. Time = Money and I wouldn't risk all the time that could be lost if something goes wrong.
That said, I was a long time user of Newegg, but I recently started using www.monarchcomputer.com on reccomendation from a friend as they beat Newegg on price in many cases. They've proven reliable so far. Check both sites and see where the best deal is to be hand if you insist on going the DIY route.
Well, I'll probably be in the minority here, but since I don't have a bank account or a credit card, there's a couple local shops I go to for almost everything, component-wise (though I think I did get my last CD burner from WalFart). It's instant retail gratification, they carry most of what I need for a marginal markup, and they can be bargained with in ways WalMart and Office Depot can't. Plus I get to feel all warm and tingly about supporting local merchants.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
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.
I've setup a couple servers from Penguin Computing and have been ecstatic with the results. Pricing out server-specific components really doesn't save money and you get a nice warranty with a system. And the racks I bought from Penguin were top-notch. When I did have a hardware problem (which wasn't their fault), they replaced the hardware instantaneously and we never even had downtime.
Time is money and they saved me a bunch of both.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Was the parent being funny? I just got back from Best Buy. I can't wait to try my UPS with my laptop. I just can't afford to lose anything I'm working on if the power goes off.
I used to build machines from price watch, but replacement costs and price made me switch to buying used dells on eBay. I always replace the drives throught price watch though...and sell the original drives.
Our job is to keep the services serving.
So we get equipment that is designed for that purpose, with overnight delivery of replacement parts and 24 hour tech support.
I prefer leasing servers for 3 years because that's usually how long the various fans, power supplies and disks will last.
Losing a server in the middle of the day is just about one of the worst things that can happen for a consultant.
Your client loses all their work/data since their last backup.
So, you take every precaution you can to ensure that that will not happen. And leasing the machines means a small monthly payment and brand new machines in 3 years (which you will be paid to install/migrate to).
Don't ever risk your client's work or data.
One good reason to avoid buying name brand.
You spend X dollars on kit from a small vendor, your money went into paying for vendors profit + the hardware.
You spend X dollars on kit from a large vendor like Dell, your money went into paying for
Magazine Ads
TV ads
Newspaper Ads
Corporate Offices
Corporate Staff
A huge fancy database backed website
Vendor profits
and oh yah, also, your hardware.
Now after deductions for all those other bits and pieces are made, how much do you think is going to be left for quality hardware? Granted when buying extremely high level kit from vendors, you do get what you pay for,
barely.
On the other hand, most major name brand equipment uses the cheapest yum-cha equipment money can buy. I would trust a power supply I picked out myself long before I trust one some marketing executive picked out as the cheapest they could get their hands on.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
. . . build lots.
Seriously. I don't care how good of a system you buy, someday something *will* go wrong and it'll go bottom up. If that's the only server you bought you're now down for the count.
On the other hand, if you bought three much cheaper commodity servers, then even if two of them go down you can probably still keep *something* going. Same basis as RAID.
Anybody who makes the assumption that good quality components means they won't melt down is setting themselves up for disappointment - and if they're lucky, it won't lead to severe financial problems.
Redundancy is king.
(Of course, in some cases, it's not practical - but I'd always choose it over individual part quality if possible. And as your scale goes up, it gets more and more practical.)
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
I don't even recommend building your own desktops for a business environment, though I can see why some people would do it. But when it comes to something critical like a server, especially if it is likely to be around for 4-5 years (as most servers are), then it's gotta be from one of the big boys (HP, Dell, IBM, etc).
The biggest reason is that if you buy a server from one of these guys, you know that you're buying a reliable, fairly stable platform that will be supported throughout it's useful life. I personally use all HP servers, and if I have a hardware failure I know that I can make a 10 minute phone call and have an engineer onsite with a replacement part in 4 hours. If I roll my own, I may have to do some troubleshooting with a number of different component manufacturers, especially if there's any finger pointing going on. With HP (or any other big manufacturer), there's one number to call and no fingerpointing.
Also, the big three vendors tend to be better able to do troubleshooting than a number of smaller vendors. I know that HP includes software for management and monitoring with their servers. I have been saved from major downtime on multiple occasions because Insight Manager has detected an imminent failure and I was able to preemptively replace the failing component. So in that sense they are also better supported than a roll-your-own solution. When you're talking about storage systems, EMC goes even further with their call home monitoring/support system.
Finally, the major vendors all perform compatibility testing on their platforms. If you buy a server pre-built from any of the big three, you can generally choose from a number of different flavors of Windows, UNIX, or Linux and know that the server is compatible and supported on that OS. If HP releases a new driver for a fibre channel HBA you know that it won't cause problems with their SCSI HBAs. If you roll your own, you have to do all of the footwork and compatibility testing yourself.
If I need a new server, I have basically two options:
1. Go to a big three vendor, spend 10 minutes configuring it online, and place the order. I can have the server shipped to me and even receive it the next day if I want. All I have to do is unpack it, rack it, and install my applications.
2. Shop around for parts, comparing reviews and prices, and hopefully come up with a config that I can use. Then order the parts from one or more vendors. Then wait for all of the parts to arrive, because the odds of everything shipping and arriving on the same day are pretty slim. When everything arrives I have to make sure that I have all of the drivers available, and then assemble the server. Then install the OS and necessary drivers, hoping that there aren't any compatibility or configuration problems to be solved. Finally I can install apps and rack it.
In business, time is money. Option one takes less than an hour of my time from placing the order to server up. Option one also is far less likely to cause me to lose uptime or cause other headaches from a support standpoint. Option two may save me a couple bucks upfront, but in the long run it's going to cost me far more. Option two is especially bad if a part fails and that particular model is no longer manufactured.
There's a popular saying in the computer industry that goes "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." There's a reason that it's true, and it extends to the other big manufacturers as well.
I bought a low cost Bow Technology 1U server case and in less than a month the PSU died. Since I'd gone through NewEgg, I figured it'd be nice and easy. I called up, they said they'd be happy to let me just send in the PSU (there's no way I'm shutting down my business over a PSU and had already put a temporary ATX PSU in it's place). 2 Weeks later I hear nothing from them. They had told me to ship the PSU next day and they'd next day the replacement. I checked the RMA and it turns out they're expecting an ATX PSU for some reason. I pointed out the error and after multiple phone calls they finally changed the RMA but still no PSU. Now they want the whole case. I tell them no way and they give me some lie about not having the case in stock anymore (meanwhile the site clearly states the cases will be in stock in a couple days).
Short story we call the Better Business Beurau. NewEgg pulled some shinanigans and got the BBB to close the case as "customer satisfied." Uh, no I'm not. So we call the BBB and tell them we're not at all satisfied as we've got no refund and no PSU.
NewEgg finally pulls their head out of their butt and refunds the entire cost of the case. I had also got the shipping costs refunded for shipping the PSU to them. What's really pathetic is that we called Bow Technology and they had no idea what NewEgg was doing as BT is more than happy to eat the cost of the PSU. NewEgg had zero reason to try to give me the shaft. It wouldn't cost them a dime to replace the part.
NewEgg lost well over $100 on that stupidity alone and I've never bought another part from them. That was over a year ago. Fortunatly my ISP was really cool and allowed my colocated server to run with the top off and an ATX PSU towering over it. Other ISPs would not be so kind.
NewEgg may be nice when things go right but when things go wrong they're idiots. I've found that's the case with quite a few companies.
They're barely off my shit list only because they gave me more than I wanted (I just wanted the PSU), but I'll have to exhaust other options before shopping with them again. This entire episode lasted 3 months and didn't affect me at all. My server was only down from the time the PSU died till I put in the ATX PSU which was only a span of about 2 hours.
Work Safe Porn
Excellent poster, will reply to again. :)
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Newegg
8anet, also known as AcmeMicro
Racks And Stands
Sybercom
TechOnWeb
Amazon (I buy a lot through Amazon because I get a referal kickback for links from my website which is nice)
AccuPC
There are a lot more I'm sure but I can't think of all of them off the top of my head. Oh, I have bought from Monarch Computers also. There are some companies I won't buy from eve again. The main one that comes to mind is Computer Giants. Those folks tried to scam me once on a Maxtor hard drive that went DOA in the first couple of days of testing. Like all the people posting complaints about them on ResellerRatings they tried to con me into paying return shipping to send the DOA drive back. They also said I'd have to pay one of their people to test the drive and confirm it was DOA. Otherwise I'd have to pay to have it sent back to me. Most people find that the drives are OEM or used and that they are selling them as new retail. Yeah, they're a bunch of asshats. That's why merchant review sites are so essential to buying on the Internet. You can't walk into an Internet store, get in a manager's face, and demand your money back for the lemon they sold you when you buy something online. You have to rely on other people's experiences to weed out the crooks. Fortunately for me Maxtor was exceptionally nice about the whole thing and took care of replacing out DOA drive with a brand new replacement. Nice folks @ Maxtor.
Anyhow, I don't always buy the lowest price on Pricewatch and Froogle. I'll buy from a company I know it's going to try and screw me even if I have to pay a little more. I always check eBay before placing an order too. Take for example one of my recent eBay purchases. I priced rack-mount patch cable organizer (wire routing gear) on Froogle. I found a decent model by APC for $25/each. I just happened to search ebay before buying and low and hehold I found Leviton cable organizers for $4.99/each. Each! Ha! Needless to say I bought 4 instead of 1. They are also built extremely well. Always check eBay before buying something online. You may find it for half the price (or less!).
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.
For the past couple years, I've been building servers for my company, and it's really turned into more of a pain than that money is worth (not to mention we've probably lost more money than we saved due to some downtime). My company is really stingy with money (less so now than they were before), and wouldnt give me the money I needed to buy any prebuilt systems, so I would piece together machines. In the end this turned out not to be the best idea due to a few factors.
1) Shipping problems would always come up where they wouldn't send out items until like a week after I bought them.
2) I recieved quite a few parts that were DOA
3) Putting some of the 1U's together was a huge pain, especially trying to find 1U cpu fans for the faster processors
4) hardware would fail, and due to it being about a year and a half since I built the machine, and hardware changing so rapidly recently, It would be hard to find a local store with replacement parts.
I think out of the 9 rackmount servers I built, I've had 5 motherboards fail, 6 sticks of ram, and a power supply (not counting the stuff that was DOA). Most of the failed hardware I would say happened within the first week of the server being online, so I dont know if that should be considered DOA too, but i'm not including it. Anyways I've recently been buying Supermicro servers and couldn't be happier. All the machines I've got from them, and that my friend who recommended them has got from them have been running great, and they're much cheaper than IBM or any other big manufacturer (though if I had the funds I'd rather buy IBM). Anyways, before I quit building my own machines I found a great place to buy rackmount cases which is rackmountmaster. All the cases I've got from them are laid out great, have good air ventelation, and aren't rediculously priced like so many other rackmount manufacturers.
For those of you in the UK there are a few cheap online resellers:
. ukt tp://www.overclock.co.uk. co.ukt ore.com
http://www.ebuyer.co.uk
http://www.komplett.co
http://www.scan.co.uk
http://www.dabs.com
h
http://www.overclockers
http://www.cpucity.co.uk
http://www.savas
I personally use ebuyer, komplett and scan most of the time, but the others aren't too bad either. Shipping varies from store to store but some use CityLink which isn't brilliant (ebuyer and cpucity).
George Wright
Well, here goes, (flame on everyone). I work in a hosting environment where the demands on CPU are low and storage is high. I don't need the whizziest new processor in my NOC to do a great job for my clients. I stick with one platform (Dell Poweredges in my case) and I began purchasing on ebay. I now have a very good relationship with one vendor, I pay about one quarter of what a new server would cost, I get a 30 day warranty from the vendor (and we torture test the machines for about a week upon receipt) and I have a NOC full of quad processor, Raid5, redundant servers that I am very happy with and which do the job quite well. Not only that, but replacemnt parts are a snap to buy direct from Dell.
What's even better about ebay, once you find a good vendor, you can keep an eye on their other auctions, or just purchase from them directly. One terminal server I purchased for an excellent price. I asked if he had more for that same price, and he sold me several more. He even had memory for 25% of market price for the servers.
Yeah you're right. Google pulls up 698 results for me and I can't find a single one that even tries to imply NewEgg sold Refurbished parts as New.
;)
The original poster probably works for MonarchComputer.com or something, taking a tip from Microsoft on the wonders of FUD tactics...
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