White Box, Or Big Names for Lower-End Servers? 107
LazloToth asks: "Those of us who manage small- to medium-size networks face the decision all the time: for the run-of-the-mill web, print, or storage server running on i386 architecture, should we buy HP or Dell, for example, or build it ourselves from commodity hardware and save some bucks up front? In my operation of fewer than 50 servers, one will see a mix of the two. For servers that take more abuse, I tend to buy the proprietary stuff. But not always. I wonder what experiences other admins and managers have had with do-it-yourself servers in a production environment, and whether they feel that white-box servers perform as well - - and last as long - - as anything else? What is the mix in your network of big-names to no-names?"
Two sides (Score:4, Insightful)
big name - warranty (saving your ass)
white box - if you build it yourself you know what's in there. It's cheaper. But you don't have a warranty.
Re:Two sides (Score:5, Interesting)
I run webserver and have about 25 boxes. I buy motherboards from only a couple of manufacturers that I trust. I run commodity Harddrives, and use rsync rather than fancy scsi. I look at the individual warranty on the parts.
I generally save enough $$ that I can buy the server and a "hot-spare" for well less than the price of a name brand box. I have had relatively few hardware issues, and even the ones I did have could be fixed quickly and cheaply. It is nice when no single component costs more than about $150.
I guess in essense I am warrantying it myself, warranties do no good if the server is going to be down for any length of time and you are dependent on a big companies whims.
-MS2k
Re:Two sides (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong - there are times when proprietary systems make sense. I don't think I'd ever build my own laptop. But servers are better when you build them yourself.
I have the exact opposite experience. (Score:4, Insightful)
These servers run 24/7 for the 3 years we have them and give us no problems at all.
Re:I have the exact opposite experience. (Score:2)
Seriously though, probably depends on which range of dates were involved.
Re:I have the exact opposite experience. (Score:2)
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
What the hell are you talking about?
Who uses proprietary hard drives?!??!
Touchy hardware - Some might disagree with me, but I found Compaq hardware to be really touchy.
I disagree with you. Compaq makes the most reliable hardware I've ever used. (Unless you're talking about their consumer-grade crap... a
Re:Two sides (Score:1)
Because I had a Compaq Desktop maybe 5.5 years ago. The think died under 2 years later and I havn't been able to fix the thing since.
However I not have a compaq laptop (Evo N410c) I'm not sure if it was made before or after the switch but I havn't had many problems. Now I did strip it down and reinstall winodows with my own XP disk but I havn't had many problems. Now my laptop doesn't have much power. It isn't made for that. The thing lags if you are
Re:Two sides (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, they use an IDE or SCSI interface. Same size, same mounting points. But they will have Compaq or IBM firmware on the drives. It's possible to substitute generic stuff, but weird things happen.
I've never held a job where I've been able to play with the cool toys. Desktop support or helpdesk, rollouts and whatnot. But even I know this. Christ.
Re:Two sides (Score:1)
I've looked after servers for more than 10 years, and have *never* come across anything like this. Every one has used regular SCSI disks from Seagate, IBM or similar, and were readily replaceable with the same spec unit purchased from any reseller. No need to purchase a specific "Compaq" compatible drive or anything.
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
This definitely used to happen. DEC was notorious for it. Vendor lock-in, dontcha know, under the guise of "reliability assurance". Their pre-commodity stuff was durable as basalt, though.
Businesses like Compaq & Sun were cheaper, though, partly because they used commodity parts. Maybe they changed, though, after they "grew up" and went Enterprise.
seconded, it's B.S. (Score:2)
Re:seconded, it's B.S. (Score:2)
Proprietary firmware happens (Score:2)
I contacted the EBay seller and he confirmed, that he tested the disks in an IBM system -- I had to send them back to him :-(
I guess, IBM does this to justify its markup. But it does happen, so eat your shite back.
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
I think that they assume they sell into Compaq shops, and that the only thing that matters is that their kit interoperates with other Compaqs.
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
I probably wasn't really clear on this. We used to buy racks full of the Compaq hot-plug drives, which you can only get them from Compaq. At least that's how it used to be.
If your *vendor* (ie the guy selling it to you) is short on parts, then they're just as likely to be short on the big name stuff as they are on the white box stuff. And you can always choose another vendor (it's not like big iron stuff where you buy from the manufacturer.)
Ok, but if I must repl
Re:Two sides (Score:1)
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
No in some cases you might have a setup that uses High Voltage Different
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
If I start getting soft errors, hard errors, warning lights, etc, on a disk drive, I replace it. Period. I have 4 hour support with Dell. They can test the drive AFTER replacing mine. It takes me 4 hours to get the drive, 2 minutes to swap it (I have to walk down a flight of stairs). If the data is sensitive, then I say I want to keep my drive when I buy the server if it should fail (doesn't cost much). I then find a way of destroying it (suc
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
Scenario #1 - Let's say you think you've got a bad backplane but aren't sure. You've replaced a couple of drives, but the problem doesn't seem to be going away. I don't know about your experience, but most techs will swap a drive and that's it. They'll bring it back to the shop and and dispose of it without a second thought. You could be fighting the same problem for months or years without a resolution.
Scenario #2 - You might like the boxe
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
If the box is at remote location, and it freezes, ssh won't do you any good, since you cannot login.
With iLO, you get console access remotely. You can even format and reinstall the entire machine if needed.
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
Using a second machine as a serial console server, then enable the serial console on the "target" server.
Obviously, this is not slick, and if the BIOS on the MB does not support a serial console you don't have "full" access, but for 99% of the issues you'll run into a serial terminal on a white box system, combined with a reboot switch will work.
The other 100% you'll have to make a trip, but you'd probably have to make a trip
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
Re:Two sides (Score:2)
big name - warranty (saving your ass)
white box - if you build it yourself you know what's in there. It's cheaper. But you don't have a warranty.
Unfortunatly it is much more complicated that that. While there is an aspect of Cost vs Support there are many factors to consider these might include, performance, budget, use, estimated time till replacement, environment and company policy.
Consider a charitable organisation, they may need a server to do tasks, x to z wh
We go proprietary (Score:4, Informative)
I know you can build a superior system thats whitebox. MDG sells machines for cheap with Intel motherboards. You can buy Tyan mobos for whitebox systems.
However keep support in mind. Everytime something breaks on IBM xseries servers, we call tech support. In 4 hours of calling the replacement part arrives, and the techie arrives the same or next day and replaces the part no questions asked. Sure we've had lots of trouble on our tape drives etc, but it gets replaced painlessly, no driver changes, and no financial hits.
Another benefit of name brands is that you can say youve worked on so and so servers in your resume. Smart employers wouldnt or shouldnt count that, but you do see people asking for MCSE and proliant servers, etc. Its even more specific when you get into UNIX... they'll only accept that brand of unix.
Re:We go proprietary (Score:3, Informative)
I'll second that tought. IBM's hardware service is second to none. Whenever one of our IBM servers (x or p or whatever) fails, we switch to
Opposite Experience Here (Score:2)
Re:Opposite Experience Here (Score:4, Informative)
Here getting Dell to come out a fix one of their servers (even with 'silver' 4 hour cover) is like getting blood from a stone. With the IBM auto-support I had one occasion where a disk failed and we had the replacement before anyone noticed the problem (incorrectly configured RAID monitoring was the culprit re the lack of notification).
Proprietary is usually better (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are running < 10-15 machines, I can see cost savings in going whitebox. But if you are tight on staff and runnings lots of machines, buying name-brand kit is cheaper in the long run.
White box all the way (Score:5, Interesting)
What really makes a difference is the vendor. I have a local guy who I can call and ask for recommendations and advice. If I tell him I want a Dual Opteron with 12 gig RAM, mirrored 74 GB hot-swap drives, dual hot-swap PS and a rack-mount case of my choosing he personally delivers it a couple days later.
Drive in my raid-array dies? He brings by a replacement the following day.
Oh, and the only number he gives me is his cell phone. And he answers it. Always.
With the exception of some specialized telephony equipment (actually a different white-box vendor specializing in that market - Dell et. al. wouldn't have a clue about this stuff), he is always my first call.
I've been using him for years. When the company he worked for ceased operations he started his own and service has remained outstanding.
I guarantee that nobody who uses the "name brand" machines can come anywhere close to the responsiveness and support that I get from my local vendor.
Re:White box all the way (Score:2, Interesting)
I use a mix of whitebox and HP gear. Thats about 35 whitebox and 10 HP.
I only use the HP gear on the high availability servers as it has great Lights Out using iLO advanced. If I could find something similar that worked as well I would probably stop using the name brand gear.
The white box servers are great. Parts can be obtained at just about any corner computer shop as there is nothing proprietary, it is built exactly as I want it, I
Re:White box all the way (Score:2)
If you didn't have your guy would you answer the same way; if you were building all yourself?
It's not the color of the box (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, by depending on this guy, you've created a one-man point of failure. What happens when this guy gets sick or goes on vacation? Where's your immediate response then?
Even if he never gets sick or takes time off, he's not going to be able to sustain this level of service. His own good reputation will work against him. He's obviously one of those people who has to do everything himself. He's probably not very good at delegating or training, so he's never going to be able to scale up his operation. So unless he starts turning away business and dropping customers when they get too big for him to handle, he's going to get in out of his depth.
If I were in your shoes, I'd want my hardware needs met by a solid organization, once I could count on not just now, but years from now. And that has to do with people, not with where the boxes are assembled.
Re:White box all the way (Score:2)
Re:White box all the way (Score:1)
I wish we all knew guys like your vender. It would make life much easier. I've been burned by very small vendors. It's not that they all make crap. It's just that they tend to vanish one day or unknowingly give you a monther board that dies after a year. With a big name brand vendor I can get an extended service contract that I know will be useful two years from now.
I own a medium sized retail store. My hours are frequently 12 hours a day six days a week, and 6 hours on Sunday. I need
Pick a major vendor (Score:5, Insightful)
The advantage of calling IBM, HP, or even Dell, is not simply the service contract (though your time is worth something), or the fact that their QC is superior to wherever you're getting your parts from, but that they have real engineers, who worry about such issues as optimizing air-flow, choosing proper fan-sizes, etc. Take apart an IBM xSeries 345 some time, then try to decide if you could actually buy parts to build a machine like that, for less than just calling IBM.
White-box systems may have once made sense, ( I remember a 386/40 AMD-based system that I wrote my thesis on that was still running when I came to visit years later), but with modern components, heat-loads, etc, it pays to invest in properly engineered hardware, backed up by a company willing to service it on short notice. WB hardware may still make sense for desktops, if your environment keeps the data in non-local storage, so that a new desktop can be dropped, booted, and put into production immediately. Never with servers.
We adopted an informal, simple, but effective policy: Do not buy any machine that doesn't come with a three-year warranty, or hard-drive that doesn't come with a five year warranty.
Re:Pick a major vendor (Score:2)
Power Supplies in Generics (Score:5, Interesting)
Decent machines, but the power-supplies weren't up to the 24x7 operation and tended to eventually have the fans sieze up, causing the ps to overheat.
Oh yeah, big time Achilles Heel of the generic PC, assuming name brand mobo and stuff.
It's just impossible to get a good power supply in a generic PC. ("Good" means built with decent quality components, like the Astecs [astecpower.com] and Lambdas [lambdapower.com] you'll find in proprietary systems. It does not mean "Comes with a ThermalTake Fan and is the choice of 14-year-olds and overclockers!".)
My best success was based on a simple formula: the power-to-weight ratio. Buy the heaviest supply marked with a given advertised wattage rating.
Then, for server use, step 2 is to open up the supply and replace all the made-in-Bangladesh-or-Taiwan-or-China electrolytic capacitors with Spragues or Nichicons rated AT LEAST 1.5x the voltage ratings of the capacitors which were in there. And then out comes the no-name 12V fan, only to be replaced with a (loud! expensive! moves a hell of a lot of air! lasts forever!) Comair Rotron [comairrotron.com] 120V fan running directly off the power line. Also gives you a chance to fix the *many* cold solder joints you're likely to find in commodity power supplies. All told, usually under an hour per supply, with the new fan often costing more than the supply!
Since I started doing this, I haven't had a single failure of one of my white-box server supplies.
Re:Pick a major vendor (Score:2)
We're a small shop and our cooling d
Go with the name brand (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider this, you buy, or build a white box. You'll end up with very short warranties provided by different companies, very much a pain in the arse. You may save $200. Now think of how much a 50k/year sysadmin makes per hour (roughly $25 if I did calc right)
So, $200/25 = 8 hours...
Now you've got $200 which is equivelent to 8 hours. Are you going to spend more times on a whitebox than a dell? I would say so. ESPECIALLY if you're building yourself. Consider extra time spent finding parts. Extra time putting it together. Then when things fail you have to round up the warranties for individual parts. Probably your warranties won't be as good as what dell provides. And then repair time. I know as a sysadmin we tend to repair ourselves anyway, but consider it may be something you WOULD let an on-site tech repair because you're busy...
In a home situation, I'd say build your own. When you're off the clock, your time is free. but at work, when time IS money, buy the named stuff.
BTW, my numbers are BS. Play with your own, I think you'll draw the same conclusions.
Dell has gone downhill (Score:2)
Whether you do it yourself or buy a name-brand system, make sure that the case is well-designed and that the co
Re:Dell has gone downhill (Score:1)
Could you provide the model numbers of these servers? I'd like to investigate further. While I'm not a proponent of Dell, the airflow on any of the servers we've received in the past 3 years appears to be good.
Re:Dell has gone downhill (Score:2)
Don't remove that plastic cover. It keeps the drive's case from getting unsightly little scratches on it!
Re:Dell has gone downhill (Score:2)
Build it yourself (Score:2)
Re:Build it yourself (Score:2, Informative)
Abit is in deep doggy-doo because they're under fire for extremely shoddy quality control and RMA service. I don't carry Abit anymore because 3 out of 4 boards would come back to us, and then Abit would sit on them for a few months before repairing or replacing them because they have no idea how to run a business (money and workforce i
Re:Build it yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
I have to query this, I'm sorry:
Are you telling us you assemble ("roughly") 1 PC every 10m 37s? Does that include unpacking? All screws? Cable ties? Boot tests?
Re:Build it yourself (Score:1)
Re:Build it yourself (Score:1)
Yes, it has fallen to such ridicule. Everyone and their mother are buying 299$ PC's to surf the net, copy DVD's and flash their pirated satellite receivers, and we make a hefty pr
Re:Build it yourself (Score:2)
Re:Build it yourself (Score:2)
ASUS has just gotten into server level boards and they are alright but fairly lowend.
MSI really shouldn't be used in a server. They make desktop boards.
DVDRWs in servers? Now really again this is a desktop component. But if we are going to discuss DVD-RWs, why would I pay 2 to 3 times more for Plextor when LiteOn are just as good. Plextor use to be heads and shoulders above the rest but now you just paying for the name.
When
I hate to say "buy" but you probalby should (Score:2)
If you are comfortable building *and supporting* the machines through their life and there really isn't anything out there that's pre-built and has the right price and features it might be worth building. There are times when the market fall
You get what you pay for (Score:2)
IBM's 4 hour turn around on parts and service can save your arse if you have to have all your eggs in one basket. Even a failed hard drive in an array is a looming disaster you'd like to fix now, not next business day. So even at 3am on Saturday - you can have a drive delivered so you can have your array back to 100% by the next business day.
If you go with whitebox - be sure and build in redundancy so you can lose one, or take it down for extended repairs. Because the money you're saving
Re:You get what you pay for (Score:2)
Re:You get what you pay for (Score:2)
Oh I see now (Score:2)
So (Score:2)
Re:You get what you pay for (Score:2)
Selling hot spares to a customer is difficult, if they're paying you to maintain their servers.
C: "So, this other 146GB hard drive will just sit there?"
Me: "No, it's a hot spare - ready to jump in and keep y
Fingers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fingers (Score:1)
Re:Fingers (Score:2)
Re:Fingers (Score:2)
Re:Fingers (Score:2)
Datacenter Experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Motherboard company blames ram, ram company blames raid card manufacturer, raid card says it's a bad firmware version of the motherboard... two hours later, server is still down. Who's going to let us swap out a motherboard just to see if it works?
I don't see a price advantage to whitebox servers compared to modern server hardware from the big names. Anyone who's just looking at the price tag is fooling themselves.
Dell's hardware is unimpressive, I'll give a nod to the previous responder who mentioned that. And storage subsystems are still insane. Even with the evolution of SATA for slower mass storage, cost/MB is still too high with these subsystems.
Beware of a name brand's inexpensive servers. Some of the rock bottom units are cheap, but they lack some of the basics like raid, hot swap drives, expandability... On the bright side, even if you go with these cheap units, you'll still have service and support from a major player.
Re:Datacenter Experience (Score:2)
Re:Datacenter Experience (Score:1)
How is SATA "slower mass storage"? What's faster? You will have trouble convincing me that a large SCSI array is faster than a large SATA array given the same interconnect. Once hit an array of 4 drives or more, your individual drive speed is no longer an issue as the connection between your system and array is the bottle neck and not the drive speed. With enough cache and a battery backup on your raid controller, the speed of your
Manageability (Score:3, Informative)
A generic box fails, or has intermittant failure, and sometimes you are scratching your head figuring out what is wrong. The better designed gear will tell you that "Dimm 2 has been throwing ECC errors for the past couple of days". Gives you a place to look. In the generic box, you are replacing all the RAM sticks.
I don't see a whole lot of difference between a Dell and a whitebox.
Re:Manageability (Score:2)
Basically, to answer the question: what will you do when the server breaks? With a server from IBM, Dell or whoever, you give them a
Middle tier (Score:3, Insightful)
For the Big, Important Servers-- customer-facing web servers, product db backend, major fileservers, etc-- then IBM, HP, NetApp for fileservers, etc seem to be the way to go. Use somebody who's built a name for themselves in the enterprise by service, not marketing; Dell still doesn't know how to support those needs.
But for intermediate servers-- internal web servers, testing boxes, etc-- you can go with a smaller company. It's still worth going with a company, rather than DIY: the company deals with fixing servers every day, has the parts on hand, etc. Your organization may have great people, but the guy who is constantly building servers for a living is going to beat you on service.
The smaller companies, like OffMyServer (blatant plug for a company who's done well by my employer), can meet your needs without breaking the bank. We have dozens of servers in my department alone, and we just couldn't afford to put a big HP contract on each of them.
ObDisclaimer: Speaking for myself, not my employer, my own opinions. Not affiliated with any of the above companies that I know of, other than that my company buys from all of them.
HP, IBM, or Sun for support and rack mount (Score:3, Informative)
For rackmount gear go with a name brand. I have had nothing but trouble with generic white box rackmount gear. Recently a stack of 20 antec cases was 1/4" too high to fit in the industry standard rack.
For non rackmount servers I will go with HP/IBM/Sun if I want SCSI or similar server features. For really low end stuff I might go with white box but only if the hardware budget is an issue, or if I need a specialty box with specific hardware. If I go with a white box I always use higher end components so their isn't much of a price difference anyway.
The biggest issue I have had with white box machines is that the hardware was not designed to run 24/7 and it fails. Despite what the tweakers think most white box server cases have poor heat management. Adding more fans is not the solution when the harddrives sit in a dead zone of low air movement.
And again the support from HP, IBM, and Sun is really nice.
Re:HP, IBM, or Sun for support and rack mount (Score:1)
parts replacement (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the questions that you should answer for yourself is, "If this server is down, how much time will it take the boss to get pissed?" If the answer is less than one day then get a name brand and a service contract that guarantees a fix, but from the sounds of things, the answer might be more along the lines of multiple days. So as long as you can make it work then white box might be a better idea in the long run, if you can handle 3 days minimum for a part replacement.
Just my thoughts on the issue.
Do both !! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do both !! (Score:2)
You'd want to do your research into what you were buying, though. I've heard that there are some models of servers aro
bear in mind the support's gone (Score:2)
it can work, but you need to weigh up the pros and cons - and be sure that you're qualified to do so.
my money's on new, named boxes, and replace them every 3 years unless you're really small or really cash-poor.
Re:bear in mind the support's gone (Score:3, Informative)
for web and mail servers?? (Score:2, Interesting)
'Big Name' at lower-than-white-box prices. Voila!
Buying big name will save you money (Score:1)
Go Proprietary... (Score:2)
We use Dells. Partly, because they fully support the IPMI protocol. It's really nice to be able to remotely control the machines, see trend statistics, etc. using IPMI.
Re:Go Proprietary... (Score:2)
Price doesn't reflect just the hardware (Score:2)
depends on use (Score:2)
Production database: Something dies. Vendor technician is there in 3 hours with a replacement part, and you're back up in 4 hours.
For random office machines, we use whatever we've got around, or buy something cheap. For production, its all IBM or Sun.
For developer laptops, we use IBM. Prices are high. Specs are low. But t
white boxen for vanilla services (Score:4, Informative)
All of our vanilla services: mail, web, and even database are on white boxen from SM. We have some black box stuff for heavy mass storage.
Spares (Score:2)
If you cant afford the extras, its hard to beat on-site service you can get from the big names.
I have to agree with the Name Brand crew ... (Score:2)
Resist the urge to buy/build one-off servers because they are cheap. The $300 one-off computer that some kid built in his garage is going to cost you way more than the difference it would have cost going with a single standardized platform - over the life of the machine.
One person can maintain 300 machines if they are all exact clones of each
Sun (Score:2)
Sun x2100 - $675 for a barebones system, just use whichever SATA drive you prefer, and brand name PC3200 DDR400 RAM (I use kingston mostly), voila an Opteron based box with 2 hard drives (there's an onboard RAID card as well), dual gigabit ethernet (broadcom, very nice), up to 4 gigs of ram (4 slots), lights out management, service light, great airflow, serial port that allows BIOS access as well as OS access (most whiteboxes won't do that). PCI-E slot for a raid card/fiberchannel/ethernet/etc. Oh and that
Re:Sun (Score:2)
Oh and that price doesn't even include the PCIe riser.
BTW what RAID cards where you suggesting to put in the PCIe slot? Last I checked none available. Hmm now wouldn't it be nice to have a PCI-X slot like a real server?
Re:Sun (Score:1)
You buy them???? (Score:2)
You don't have any old PII or PIIIs laying around?
We often retire old desktops to print or small web servers at my office. We usually have more of them than we know what to do with. Now for storage that is a different story. If a print server goes down you probably didn't loose anything. For storage I would want a good white box or a name box.
Re:You buy them???? (Score:1)
That is what is what a SAN is good for....put a cheap box out there as a server and a have 2 or more high reliability storage devices on your network that all the servers use for storage
use one of the various Linux iSCSI targets and initiators (Microsoft has iSCSI target and initator software for Window$ also), along with LVM and Software RAID to create some cheap SAN devices consisting of 2 or more SATA drives, a beefy power supply (i.e not the
Old Optiplexes (Score:2)
Other chip types (Score:2)
Re:Other chip types (Score:2)
Dude(tte) you need to (Score:1)
The thread:
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/09/01 45234&tid=98 [slashdot.org]
My take:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135424&cid =11301686 [slashdot.org]
Quote:
I wonder what experiences other admins and managers have had with do-it-yourself servers in a production environment, and whether they feel that white-box servers perform as well - - and last as long - - as anything else?
99% of the time as an admin, and per
One way to save some bucks when you go with (Score:2)