Re: Server Grade Hardware Purchase [OT]

Just to throw in another 4 cents :)

Dell is starting to "industrialize" a little too much recently and  
I've run into huge issues with their equipment not working in a  
certain scenario that it should have.  I've run into this from  
something as simple as their rails are designed with a specific  
purpose (their racks) and you'll end up with huge issues if you get a  
slightly different rack up to hardware firmware which should be  
industry standard has weird quirks.  And when it comes to Linux  
support, well, on a desktop machine you're good to go with Ubuntu but  
on their server hardware you'll likely see issues if you move to  
something other than Red Hat.  I've also seen lots and lots of weird  
issues with the PERC controllers....  random reports of a bad drive  
that really isn't bad, etc.  All of that said, Dell is not bad but  
IMHO they aren't good either.  They just seem to be easier to get.

Recently I came to absolutely LOVE the HP systems and that lasted  
about a week.  It ended abruptly when I needed to install an SSD into  
the system.  Their servers are designed well, they are reliable, and  
their iLO is incredible but the problem comes if you want to do  
anything outside of an HP branded part.  Every single thing you'd want  
to do is an "option" from HP.  The dl320s that I recently have been  
working with has a PCI-X slot, however, in order to use it you must  
buy an option board for it.  Sounds like that might be simple enough  
but try to go find the part you need.... it's a never ending battle.   
To add to this frustration, HP has had dl320 servers for YEARS but  
they never change the model number...  if you go order a part for a  
dl320 you could end up with a part for a 4th gen rather than a 5th gen  
and, of course, it won't work.  There isn't even the standard  
connectors you would expect to see inside the chassis (such as power  
connectors) and when I added a second controller card for an external  
array the controller that came with the system decided that it no  
longer wanted to run.  This happened with adding an LSI card or an  
adaptec card.  I still haven't found the reason for that.  Then let's  
get to memory.  Their servers are 10x more picky on RAM than a Mac.   
We've now ordered in 3 sets of memory that match the specific  
specifications of the OEM and some don't work and others will only see  
half the amount of RAM.  I'd have to say that HPs are an awesome  
solution if you are buying a box that you are going to just throw in a  
rack and never touch but if you expect to do ANYTHING inside of the  
box be ready to need to buy lots of extra components and go through a  
week or two of hell.

Related to Sun's servers, I don't know anyone that is using their  
intel based systems but a lot of my customers have AMD64 systems from  
Sun that I have been working with and I have to say that working with  
these servers have been extremely pleasant.  They have a solid lights  
out as well.  Now, I will admit that I havent had to do anything way  
out of the normal order of business with Sun but my impression of the  
systems are they are very easy to work with inside of the systems.  My  
customers have been reporting that the benchmarks of their Sun's are  
quite impressive as well.

And last but not least, SuperMicro.  These are BY FAR the easiest  
boxes to work with because they are almost 100% industry standard.   
You can swap parts out till your hearts content.  I've never run into  
an issue where I couldn't use something that we bought inside of a  
supermicro.  There are no (or very few) specialized parts in the  
systems.  I will say, however, that I am not a huge fan of their  
storage controllers.  I think the best way to go about this is to buy  
a supermicro barebones and add your own CPU, RAM, and controller (and  
I still highly recommend 3ware).  When in the data center these  
servers are, by far, my favorite servers to work with.  I've run into  
almost no surprises with these boxes like I have with just about every  
other option (HP being the worst and Dell being a close second).

HTH
bob

On Jun 27, 2008, at 2:27 PM, Phil Sorber wrote:

> Sun x86 hardware is hit and miss. The v20z and v40z were actually  
> rebrands of boxes maybe by another company, but they were pretty  
> good. The Sun in house engineered replacements for those were also  
> good. The 32bit intel hardware they put out before all of those was  
> sub-par. Not awful, but not great.
>
> When I worked in HPC we had large clusters of IBM, Sun, and Dell  
> hardware. The Dell hardware was good enough, cheap enough, and  
> doggonit we liked the service too!
>
> The only thing Sun really had on Dell was AMD Opteron's at the time.  
> We were not pleased performance wise with the Intel chipsets, mostly  
> due to memory bus architecture bottlenecks. These aren't so much a  
> problem anymore, and probably wouldn't effect you even if they were.
>
> Disclaimer: this is all opinion based on my experience.
>
> Chris Moates wrote:
>> This is as bad as asking "Which distro is the best?" in many ways,  
>> as experience will vary a lot.
>> We are about to end of life the last of some SuperMicro machines we  
>> bought less than 18 months ago due to hardware issues with their  
>> RAID subsystem which SuperMicro can't seem to resolve. Their  
>> support has been great, but the end result is still broken servers.
>> I can't speak for Sun's x86 hardware, but their Sparc hardware,  
>> while underpowered and overpriced, was always well engineered.
>> My current and former employer both used Dell heavily. About 100  
>> servers here and a few thousand at my last employer. The 2900  
>> series is a good low-end server.
>> I haven't personally used any HP hardware in a decade. As you say  
>> though, rumor has it it doesn't suck like it used to.
>> All in all, I can't think of many good reasons to choose Dell over  
>> the others, based on my limited knowledge. Their support is great,  
>> hardware replacement is super fast (especially if you pay for the 4  
>> hour warranty, or whatever it is called), prices are cheap, Linux  
>> support is excellent, and the build quality is above average.
>> Does the vendor of your software have a hardware recommendation?
>> Chris
>> Bob K Mertz wrote:
>>> Take a look at Sun's x86 solutions or SuperMicro.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: "Josiah Ritchie" <josiah.ritchie@...>
>>>
>>> Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:04:28 To:cplug@...
>>> Subject: [CPLUG] Server Grade Hardware Purchase [OT]
>>>
>>>
>>> I haven't purchased server grade hardware in over a year. In my  
>>> prior
>>> shop, we would almost always default to Dell. I've heard whispers  
>>> that
>>> HP is the way to go. I want a machine that I know runs lots of other
>>> places without any trouble rather than something I build from  
>>> scratch
>>> or someone else tosses together for me and I want something
>>> economical. The server will host an application called MPower and  
>>> it's
>>> SQL based database. (It's win only now, but they are moving toward  
>>> the
>>> open source which will include linux and MySQL support I hear.) The
>>> machine will unlikely have more than 5 consecutive users in its
>>> lifetime.
>>>
>>> I'm spec'ing out a PowerEdge 2900. I thought some of you guys might
>>> have something better with the latest info and given that it may  
>>> turn
>>> into a Linux box in the future.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> JSR/
>>>
>>>
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