[asterisk-users] Had it with Dell Garbage - HP Question

[Jesse Molina]

If you can't troubleshoot a hardware problem, then you should definitely not be thinking about this.  Going with a support-yourself plan is not for everyone, especially if you don't have good hands-on hardware ability local to where the systems are.

The cost savings can be significant enough that you don't' need to worry about third party support.  Just buy some cold-spare systems.  Out of eight servers, you can buy three spares and still have money left over -- assuming a three year life span for the systems and related support costs.  This is true on 1U and 2U systems -- I'm not sure about larger stuff.

After all, what are Dell/IBM/HP-Compaq going to do for you, other than replace the hardware?  Nothing.  They don't support your custom software and configurations, just hardware.  Yank the hard drives, RAID controller, install in a spare system, and you're up and running again.  Figure out what went wrong on the old system later.  If it's under warranty, get it RMAed at your leisure.  If it's not, you've got another two spare systems on the shelf, waiting there 24x7 just for you.

Once again, it's not for everyone.  If you don't feel comfortable with it, don't do it!  It works for some businesses, not for others.  It depends on who is supporting your servers.  If IBM supports your servers, get IBM support.  If you support your servers... then why are you paying them to do nothing???  Don't pay for emotional support.



On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 06:55:10PM -0400, Al Baker wrote:
> ok - but, who do you call for HW problem ? HP has all levels of 
> warranties all depending on how much $$
> you want to spend. What do you do if you buy and install Supermicro ?????
> HP also has 24x7 support center , again not for free, what do you do 
> with Supermicro ???
> I am really interested because I hear a lot of folks putting * on them 
> but I never have worked on them while I have put in bunch of HPs really 
> big boxes..
> Thx for sharing your experience
> 
> Matthew Gibson wrote:
> > I've had good luck with these guys:
> >
> > http://rackmountsetc.com/
> >
> > supermicro have never failed me yet.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Jesse Molina <jesse at opendreams.net 
> > <mailto:jesse at opendreams.net>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >     If you want barebones where you add your own processor, RAM, hard
> >     drives, and options, try SuperMicro brand servers.  They are
> >     thousands of dollars less than the "big" (fat) names like IBM and
> >     HP/Compaq, but very good quality.
> >
> >     I've built several clusters of computers with SuperMicro systems.
> >      They are great if you want to do barebones, clusters, or other
> >     special projects.
> >
> >     It just takes a little more time to do the assembly work.
> >
> >     Try newegg.com <http://newegg.com> for some sample pricing.
> >
> >
> >

-- 
# Jesse Molina
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