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We've tried several vendors at Justin.tv, but we always end up circling back to Dell. Pricing is great, spare parts are readily available on Ebay, and they're

by kvogt 18y ago

We've tried several vendors at Justin.tv, but we always end up circling back to Dell. Pricing is great, spare parts are readily available on Ebay, and they're quality machines. Definitely get in touch will their sales guys and plan your purchase for the end of the month, or better yet, end of the quarter. You're making the right choice on 1U 8-core boxes. We've done the math and there's no better combination of price, performance, density, and power consumption out there. -Kyle

jbyers 18y ago
Note that Dell's end-of-quarter is the end of January, not December. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=DELL http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=DELL
e1ven 18y ago
I'll add another vote for Dells- a) Their servers rack very nicely, particularly when you're using Dell racks. No tools are necessary, which saves a Lot of time when you're setting up/moving the machines. b) The management tools are much better than you get from SuperMicro/offbranded machines- You can generally find a hardware fault quickly from their boot CDs, rather than diagnosing manually. c) As Kyle mentioned, the parts are ubiquitous- Dell still carries parts for most of their machines, but even if you can't find it from them, you can find it from another vendor. d) Because Dells are so common, it's easy to find other's experiences with a software/hardware combination. http://en.community.dell.com/forums/ http://en.community.dell.com/forums/ e) Support. Don't underestimate this when choosing what vendor to buy from.. With one of out offbrand vendors, a replacement drive took at least 2 weeks to be shipped out and arrive.. If you pay for the Dell premium support ($200ish per server), they'll drive a tech to the spot within hours. They're less than ideal on storage pricing- It's often cheaper to buy drives elsewhere.. Further, their live reporting tools (Check HD status, etc), aren't as good as they really should be. I'd certainly call up a sales rep and have a chat with them. They'll usually give you a discount if you're buying any quantity- If they hesitate, ask if they'll throw in free gold support. They'll normally do that to save a sale, since it doesn't cost the rep very much. -Colin
jwilliams 18y ago
> You're making the right choice on 1U 8-core boxes. If it's appropriate... I've found Apple XServe is a competitive 1U 8-core as well.
lsc 18y ago
the biggest problem with dell is only 8 ram slots. if you want 32GB ram, this means 4GB modules... you will end up paying more than a grand more per server than you would if you got a box with 16 ram slots.

by kvogt 18y ago

jbyers 18y ago

Note that Dell's end-of-quarter is the end of January, not December. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=DELL http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=DELL

e1ven 18y ago

I'll add another vote for Dells- a) Their servers rack very nicely, particularly when you're using Dell racks. No tools are necessary, which saves a Lot of time when you're setting up/moving the machines. b) The management tools are much better than you get from SuperMicro/offbranded machines- You can generally find a hardware fault quickly from their boot CDs, rather than diagnosing manually. c) As Kyle mentioned, the parts are ubiquitous- Dell still carries parts for most of their machines, but even if you can't find it from them, you can find it from another vendor. d) Because Dells are so common, it's easy to find other's experiences with a software/hardware combination. http://en.community.dell.com/forums/ http://en.community.dell.com/forums/ e) Support. Don't underestimate this when choosing what vendor to buy from.. With one of out offbrand vendors, a replacement drive took at least 2 weeks to be shipped out and arrive.. If you pay for the Dell premium support ($200ish per server), they'll drive a tech to the spot within hours. They're less than ideal on storage pricing- It's often cheaper to buy drives elsewhere.. Further, their live reporting tools (Check HD status, etc), aren't as good as they really should be. I'd certainly call up a sales rep and have a chat with them. They'll usually give you a discount if you're buying any quantity- If they hesitate, ask if they'll throw in free gold support. They'll normally do that to save a sale, since it doesn't cost the rep very much. -Colin

jwilliams 18y ago

> You're making the right choice on 1U 8-core boxes. If it's appropriate... I've found Apple XServe is a competitive 1U 8-core as well.

lsc 18y ago

the biggest problem with dell is only 8 ram slots. if you want 32GB ram, this means 4GB modules... you will end up paying more than a grand more per server than you would if you got a box with 16 ram slots.