11–20 of 37 posts
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
"Extra Large Instance 15 GB of memory, 8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform"
$0.80/hour - about $730/month.
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…
You may consider 8anet.com. You can customize the server according to your needs. They also setup for you the server for 20 or 50 dollars. I don't remember exactl
What I learned - End of Quarter yields huge savings at Dell. If you are going to buy 10 servers for sure, create an account, spec out one server and call in to the small business division. Ask the salesman what he can do if you buy 5 of the one in your cart, he will give you a number let him know you have to talk to your partner put him on hold or call back. Then ask what he can do if you buy 10 - watch the price go down again on the quote.
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…
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/
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
First go to the Dell website and price out the equipment. Then when you're speaking to the sales guy, tell him you priced it out on the website and it came out to about 88% of the actual price the site gave you.
Then tell him you've heard that talking to the sales guy is the way to start a business relationship and that you were hoping he could quote it out for you. Tell him you're ready to make the purchase decision immediately but the pricing has to make sense. Tell him the pricing on the website looks like it's marked up quite a bit.
It may take him a day or more to generate the quote.
Be aware that he has tremendous room to wiggle on some items, but not on others. Last order I placed the salesman could discount heavily some items but not others. You don't really care as long as the overall price makes sense. So when you eventually go over the quote with him, be sure to focus on your "budget" for the equipment, and not on where the specific pricing comes from.
You should also have a simultaneous dialog like this going with a rep from any other companies you'd buy from.
To the salesperson, the equation is effort vs time. If he knows you're ready to buy soon, then he has every incentive to make you a good deal b/c in a day the sale will be made and so he'll be willing to take a small commission in exchange for a quick sale. He has some constraints about how he can price items, but has a lot of flexibility on price.
If you're buying 10 to 20 servers you should be looking at least a 25% discount off of the website price. The only reason they publish those prices is to give the salesperson a starting point to work down from (or to sucker naive shoppers into paying full price via the web).
You want to come across as decisive and ready to buy at all times, if only he can solve the "issues with the pricing".
Frankly Dell's sales process stinks, and it is annoying to have to work with some of the salespeople there. But I've saved a substantial amount of money over the web prices by negotiating with them, so it's worth it.
You may also be able to save money by modifying some of the configurations slightly, b/c Dell lets salespeople discount based on the need to move inventory.
Don't be afraid to tell the salesperson it's OK if he needs to ask permission from his manager to make the deal, but that you're eager to get the order placed today. Tell him he can put you on hold while he speaks to the manager.
Good luck!
You can save a lot of money by going with the sales guy. Just be sure he knows that you are growing and you'll be placing a big order every few months. First go to the Dell website and price out the equipment. Then when you're speaking to the sales guy, tell him you priced it out on the website and it came out to about 88% of the actual price the site gave you. Then tell him you've heard that talking to the sales guy…
(A) Lease vs. Buy: If you can swing it, lease them instead - tax benefits, etc. (B) Do you really need 8 cores per box? I.e., you can get used dual-dual machines a lot cheaper than 50% of the price of the dual-quad machines. (C) If you know what you want and are buying new then going with a white box builder is significantly cheaper than buying from Dell/HP/etc. I've been pretty happy with ASA especially since they'v…
As for the disk, I just don't have a lot to store.