Equipment Suppliers You Can Trust? 379
Steve Gray asks: "It has happened to all of us at some time or another. You're two weeks from deploying an application, but suddenly your testbed server falls over, and just won't get back up. After fighting with a variety of companies to try and get parts delivered for Tuesday, I'm finding that most companies will stall your order for days for reasons from random extra checks through to migration of lesser known species of Vole, business needs be damned! Who do Slashdot readers turn to when technology goes wrong? Do you trust them to deliver by tommorow, without fail?"
When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:5, Informative)
When I worked for people with a clue there were always redundancies and spare parts. Now shops seem to run like the Petroleum Companies (claim to, anyway) and that is heavy dependence on JIT delivery of goods. Overnight is about the best CDW or anyone else seems to promise anymore.
Gawds. We used to have actual Field Service contracts which guaranteed two hour response time, and that meant someone was on site in two hours, not returning a call within that time.
I suppose HP and IBM still offer such, but if you're on anyone elses PC's or servers then you've dug your own grave.
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:5, Insightful)
What that overnight shipping costs on some parts would pay for the part itself. Keep spares on hand.
- Eric
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, I agree with the above. In fact, I would go further and say that you have to regularly practice stuff like replacing a drive, or restoring a database to a backup server, to make sure your knowledge and procedures are up to snuff and documented.
Clueless Mistakes (Score:5, Informative)
One place where I used to work, a drive in a RAID array failed. No problem, they sent the new kid to replace the drive--easy to tell, it was the one with the red light in the middle of the array. But being the anal-retentive organizer he was, he decided to MOVE THE OTHER DRIVES OVER so the new one would be at the end. That took the array offline of course and totally confused the controller once it did see the new drive. For more than a week they claimed the data loss was due to a "rare double-drive failure".
Oh, and of course they lost several days worth of data because the last two tape backups wouldn't restore and the heads hadn't been cleaned for six months, but you could have guessed that.
Re:Clueless Mistakes (Score:2)
The words ring cleasly still lodged in my head, "well we didn't use the backups so why did i have to make them." Fortunaly, a lab was able to recreate the array, recover all the data and return it within a month for less then $9000 US. Oh a
Re:Clueless Mistakes (Score:3, Funny)
I've had some great jobs and some not-so great jobs. The one I'm at now is in the middle. I have the opportunity to learn some stuff that's not too easy to get a lot of hands-on with while not being a specialist. I trust myself not to f*ck anything, because I am careful, I document, and I have a lot of experience in the field. Unfortunately, a lot of my time is taken up doing "lesser" work because I can't trust the other guys to do things right. I know that in the
Re:Massive sympathy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes! I enjoy my job and I'm always very helpful to everyone around me, including the dev team, end-users, and other MIS folks. I get it done fast because I know that's how I like it when I ask for something, too. Unfortunately, it does bite you in the ass. You do need to eventually push back a little bit, or else you'll end up in your scenerio. It suc
Re:Massive sympathy. (Score:3, Funny)
This went on for awhile until the new manager decided that he wanted something off of backup instead of being careful. Right in front of the manager, he grabbed his hiking backpack and walked into our MDF with a "See you in 2 days!" He se
Re:Clueless Mistakes (Score:4, Informative)
Some things are below "any" minimum competence standards.
And for the goy mentioned an Onsite response contract. I work for a company that provides that service. We have 2 goys employed full time with the sole porpose of keeping track of the warehouse of spare parts we keap for our contract customers.
We also have full spare machines.
Simple rule. If you need to have something deliverd within 2 days of ordering it, you made a serius blunder before and are now engaged in damage control.
Free Tips for IT shops on a tight budget ?
1. Similar servers. Chuse a couple of "default servers". Something solid simple and reliable that can handle most of the odd jobs that come up. Helps with #2.
2. Spare server for each make and model machine in your data centre. These machines can be a lot cheaper than you might think if you know how to manage the overlaps. I.e. It makes sence for this spare machine to have little or no Hard drives. Less memory etc.. Basicaly just enogh that you can boot and test it ruteanly.
3. Spare parts. To make this cheaper creat some uniformity in your server configs. I.e. If you are buying SMP machines with 3GH 1MB Zeons, then keap doing that ontil the next procesor you chuse is a big step up. I.e. 4GH. Also. Large SCSI drives work as spares for smaler drives in a RAID. (You can replace you failed 36GB drive with a 300GB drive.)
4. Backup, Backup, Backup ontil you hit the wall. Tape backups are for storage offsite in case the data centre burns down. For
recovering after a server crash you should have a dedicated backup server with oodles of internal storage. That's why they invented SATA
5. My favorite thogh and this isn't mentioned in ANY service manual or CS course. Put the OS, applications and configuration information on a dedicated RAID 1. Then breack the RAID. I.e. remove 1 of the disks and replace it with a blank drive which will be prumpltly remirorred. That original drive can then be filed away with your backup tapes for instant recovery.
Local stock of spare parts... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well I don't trust these field service contracts too much, unless I know the supplier has local or regional stock. I've seen it way to often recently, these companies (HP, Dell, EMC) can get you an engineer on site in 2/4 hours, but the spare parts might take a lot longer than the agreed time.
Re:Local stock of spare parts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Local stock of spare parts... (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't one all you needed? Couldn't you have had it overnighted to you for a bunch of dollars?
You may or not be aware, but used car junk yards now keep similar databases, and can find you parts that are sitting on a junked car in another state, and you can have it shipped to you -- for a nice premium, of course, but if you need it, you need it.
A
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:2, Insightful)
I know IBM can do it, if they're paid enough.
My company (130,000 people) outsourced it's hardware support to IBM. Just at my location, depending on severity, we've had response times of less than a half-hour (when our IBM 3174 [ibm.com] failed to reboot after a power failure, cutting off half our building), to days (when a single monitor released it's magic smoke).
Cutting off half our building to spite our face (Score:3, Funny)
So your computer was like propping up some sort of giant guillotine? That's one way to get deadlines met!
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:2)
IBM will hire a machine shop & a clean room to rebuild an old hard drive from scratch for you, if they're paid enough. I'm not sure too many people have that amount of cash practically available though.
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:2)
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:4, Informative)
HP - IBM - Dell - Sun (Score:5, Informative)
HP for instance has quite a number of different options available as seperately purchaseable support packs, including a pretty expemsive one with guaranteed time back so service (most vanilla support contracts only guarantee reaction time or appearnace time on site, leaving you with a residual though small risk that the necessary part may take longer to arrive).
You do plan your systems for a well defined service level, do you ? Else, someone should maybe start doing his job. Often a spare server is a cheaper alternative to high level support contracts - we often go this route. But keep that spare a spare - if you live in the kind of shop that happens to find its spare server miracolously doing mission critical work after a few months, you'd be better off to buy support from professionals.
recommendation (Score:2, Funny)
Oh and we're right across the river from Manhattan. Can't beat that with a bat. -Dave x122 (PS> We also do IBM,
Re:recommendation (Score:5, Funny)
-h-
Re:shameless plug (Score:4, Funny)
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:2)
Yeah. I'm with you on that.
But it's the same answer. You dig your own grave. I was there, I lived it 24/7. I worked for a guy who was too cheap to buy decent hardware but not too embarrased by his own stupid decisions to ask me to work over the weekend
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:2, Funny)
Ahh, yes.. Fedex would deliver a box just as the IBM tech was walking through the front door to replace a part BEFORE it had failed completely causing the dreaded down-time.
Now THAT was Scottish.
*sigh*
People make things happen. Contracts don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you know someone closer to your end of things, and you can work with that person, you will get far better service. In support, it's the guy who says "here's my pager number in case you have trouble with this" even if he doesn't want you to call him every time you have trouble. The flip side of this is that eventually you know which guys break more than they fix, or close tickets without even calling. Knowing the local service manager or dispatcher is a real help here, or more accurately, the more people you know, the better it gets.
In sales, you need a Rep who will work with you, and has some power. I mean the guy who says "I'll get you some of those tomorrow" and you may not even see a bill for them (although you also might be billed at the real value - you NEEDED those, right?) This is the guy you buy your redundant supplies from when things are calm, so you don't always have to rely on him dropping everything for you. This is not the guy who won't lift a finger without a signed PO.
Contracts aren't worth as much as you'd like.
I found IBM four hour turnaround time to be an exception even in the early nineties, and it hasn't gotten better. Admittedly, we were the low end of the market, but we still had a four hour contract with IBM, and it was honored almost exclusively in the breach. I have not seen anyone significantly better since then either. It just doesn't happen. I have occasionally gotten stellar support from IBM, Dell, HP, Compaq and Cisco, but that was always completely localized, never reliable with any single vendor. FedEx has built their reputation on promptness and reliability, not becasue it's easy or common, but rather because it's difficult and rare.
Let's not talk about contractors. Some kind souls cannot be bought or bound by a piece of paper. Those things only enable them to help you, as demonstrated by random arbitrary work interruptions. You may not see them for weeks at a time in the middle of an urgent job, but remember that these kind souls, martyrs really, help you stave off catastrophe out of the goodness of their hearts alone.
Ultimately, it's the people who make it happen, like the FedEx driver who scanned my package at 6:04 last night as he got into his truck, and waited while I went inside to get a piece of tape from the the counter guy who told me I was too late.
I hope you get lots of good recommendations for companies that will deliver quickly and reliably, and I'll keep an eye on this thread to see what people have to say. Meanwhile, be nice to your office manager.
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason JIT and other issues have arrived is technology itself. Everything is cutthroat (and I mean cutthroat) and anyone supplying something with the best, barest of sales margin wins. You'd be surprised how much money can become involved in reverse auctions at the enterprise level. Suppliers' prices can easily drop 80%-85% in auctions with hardware's estimated price to be fix figures in less than an hour. Even into the 90s, the most advanced form of communication between field personnel and the ho
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:4, Insightful)
Back then hardware was reliable enough that the manufacturers could afford that luxury for the few times things did break down. Nowadays, they want to cut costs to stay "competitive," and the first thing to go it seems is reliability.
Re:When I Worked For People With A Clue... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure how much the vendor paid for that particular IBM contract, but the service level is quite nice.
The JIT model isn't so bad and it would seem some companies are building around that. I had some time to chat with the service tech and he was telling me about the shipping setup various companies have. Dell actually had a facility nearby that warehoused and shipped out parts as needed. (Not anywhere close to a Dell facility, but just a warehouse/shipping rig) It would seem he wasn't just an IBM remote tech, but actually was shared among several companies.
So this fellow can actually have parts ordered and drove out on a moments notice from at least IBM and Dell.
That's not really the "JIT" model. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the company has a warehouse of parts, that isn't "JIT".
"JIT" is where the company attempts to predict exactly how many parts it will need tomorrow and only order that number of parts from its vendors today.
Those vendors
USPS Express Mail == AWESOME (Score:3, Interesting)
With Express Mail, you can literally ship something in the morning on Christmas Eve, knowi
24x7x365 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If I really cared... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the machine has an RS-232 port and boots, I'd recommend an old version of LapLink. It had a remote install feature that worked by running a copy of command.com using a serial port as the console (a little-known feature of MS-DOS) and then piping the program through that to a file). You can then use it at both ends to t
Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
The handyman's secret weapon.
I keep a roll in a box on the wall, behind a glass panel, with "Break glass in case of emergency" on it. Every 6 months it is checked for stickiness when the fire extinguishers are checked.
Re:Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
Shame on you
SB
Re:Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but when the gears slip out of place on several of our Babbage Mark I systems, the only thing that holds the rods in place is duct tape.
But we've been reading up on a faste and smaller replacement for our Babbage Differential Engines that don't have many moving parts. We might just upgrade to them. They say the new thingies can even interact with some kind of fishing net or something. They say they've replaced the gears with some kind of glass tubes that light up and glow when it's on.
Oh, and the dog wouldn't chew any asses, except he's well trained. Someone tells him to "Eat my shorts," and he does.
Re:Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
Because the competent don't leave it for last.
Re:Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
Refuge : Shelter
I'll leave the decision as to which was appropriate as an exercise to the reader.
Local stores (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, you pay a slight premium but it's worth it. I suppose you may want to consider next day on site repairs from the manufacturer as part of an extended warranty or service agreement.
Re:Local stores (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Local stores (Score:5, Informative)
Today's alternative is to make sure that critical services are functioning in either clusters or farms. This means that the loss of a single machine is not noticed by anyone not wearing a pager. Any other services are not critical and thus not worth the immediate sweat... they get overnight support.
Certainly, you can get 2-hour support, just ask the salesman for a quote next time you're renewing a service contract - but be prepared to pick your jaw up off the ground and possibly suffer from a lifetime of TMJ.
Re:Local stores (Score:3, Insightful)
Dell (Score:2)
Re:Dell (Score:2)
And yes, we had one of the ludicrously expensive contracts.
wel... (Score:5, Insightful)
IGS: IBM Global Service. (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, Keep a small stock to be out of troubles your self.
2 o 3 spare hard disk, 1 GB ram, the hardware you need and the bugdet you have...
If is that important backup equipment, redundancy, etc, and always, have 2 or 3 plans of action. Even if you get a 100% next day whatever-you-need replacement, you still need the plan b, and c...
Check tue bussines continuity plans and risk managment theory, you will get pretty
POWER SUPPLIES!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
2 o 3 spare hard disk, 1 GB ram, the hardware you need and the bugdet you have...
With the possible exception of hard disks, the part that is [overwhelmingly] the most likely to fail, and, several years down the road, among the most difficult to replace [because form factors will have moved on to new standards] is the power supply.
Always purchase several extra power supplies for any mission critical system.
Re:POWER SUPPLIES!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I do a lot of subcontracting for small shops, and the #1 idiotic mistake they make is to use cheap power supplies, you know, the kind that costs $5.00 and boasts "420 watts" underneath the "Made in China" sticker. Sure enough, 3 months later I was replacing the same power supply for the same client. Had they paid $15.00 for a slightly better unit, it would have lasted several years (i'm dead serious). Or if you're that anal
Re:IGS: IBM Global Service. (Score:2)
A simple extension of that support to 5 years will cost < 1 k$ (one time).
A very expensive 4 Years 24x7 4 hours is < 2 k$ (one time)
And 4 years 24x7 with 8 hours guaranteed hardware repair time is 2.8 k$ (one time)
As for coding.... well, big names like IBM are always really fucking obscenely expensive. Da
I trust IBM (Score:2)
Two words: (Score:4, Insightful)
*sigh* Dell (Score:4, Informative)
Our dedicated farm of Dells numbers just about 1200 servers. Initally, we had to wrestle with them over every little disk and stick of RAM. Eventually, we just had to tell their support tech what we needed, and they greased the approval skids, shipping things out the same day. Now that we're WPD, we can do it online ourselves. It took me about 10 mins to order the mobos the other day.
Re:*sigh* Dell (Score:2)
Re:*sigh* Dell (Score:2)
It is quite funny seeing a part arrive by bike and then a dell engineer seperately turning up to remove a
Re:*sigh* Dell (Score:3, Informative)
See http://warrantypartsdirect.dell.com/us/program/T00 00000.asp [dell.com] for info. We were effectively pushed into it by our Dell rep who recognized that our needs weren't being met by their standard support programs.
If you can pony up the $$, their 4-hour replacement/on-site tech gig works wonders. They have parts depots and techs all over the world.
Say it like it is (Score:2)
That should do the trick.
Dell for servers... (Score:2)
To be honest, it's one reason I'd still buy them. I love their decent business service. The engineers they send out know their stuff and I can let them get o
You should never ever (Score:2)
I'd suggest something slightly different. (Score:2)
Gentlemen, start your lawn tractors... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dell (Score:2)
Note that their business support and desktop support divisions seems to be totally separate. I have never been routed to anyone I have had trouble understanding in the least, once I enter the express code for a business piece of equipment. Home computers are another story.
If you have "Gold" or "Platinum" service, where they have 4-hour response for equipment you get transferred to a separate department. I've never had that phone ring more than
PC Connection. NewEgg. (Score:2)
jh
Sony (Score:5, Funny)
Now there's an honest, reputable, and sincere company!
The joys of Epson scanner network cards... (Score:2)
However, we placed a call with Bechtle Direct [bechtle.co.uk] (European, and nice and cheap for ink and toner btw) and got one in a week. That may sound like a long time, but at least we didn't get the usual 'bend-over to please' BS some suppliers fob
CDW (Score:2)
And for the record, I'm talking about CDW [cdw.com]
If they have it in stock, they WILL deliver, overnight if you need it that bad, and they stand behind their stuff. They have great relationships with their suppliers as well, so if you need pre-sales support, they can make that happen as well.
We (current company) sole-source our COMPAQ stuff through them, and I do not know of a single complaint. Once you have established an account, and
Re:CDW (Score:2)
Although I'm not technically employed by CDW, I am contracted to handle their customer service. Their warehouse is closed on statutory holidays,
spare parts and local vendors (Score:2)
Spare parts are always best, obviously. Test them before you stick them in the spare parts bin, though.
How's about we just say "Please place ads here"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess this is a Create-Your-Own-Slashvertisement?
Local Shop (Score:5, Insightful)
My boss, on the other hand, likes to go to Tiger Direct and buy the cheapest crap they have on the shelf.
Provantage.com (Score:2)
Horror story (Score:2, Insightful)
Monetary value of this story? (Score:4, Insightful)
I like newegg.com - and I wonder how much revenue they get directly attributable to this story and this comment.
Turn to... (Score:2)
Dell.
> Do you trust them to deliver by tommorow, without fail?"
Yes.
There is a reason why they are such a big and popular supplier, and it isn't due to suspension of disbelief. Of course, you may need to have favourable terms in your contract to get the kind of service you want, as they probably don't offer it to every little company around.
you could.. (Score:4, Funny)
It's not really that simple (Score:2)
My head hurts (Score:2)
Can someone please translate that into a sentence? Seriously... I can wade through some of the typical grammatical errors, but come on...
How can you tell if a computer sales guy is lying? (Score:2)
Exceptions to this rule: PBFix in San Luis Obispo (sells PowerBook Parts, and has a decent stock of parts); CDW isn't bad, and CompUSA can often turn things around quickly.
Otherwise, the big seven all have parts/SLA agreements that you can buy. The only one I trust anymore is IBM.
Deliver by "tommorow"? (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, I don't even trust them to spell "tomorrow".
CDW.. it's the reason you pay rip-off prices (Score:2)
But, if you don't mind getting ripped off for the part, order CDW. There's a reason they charge nearly 30% more than anywhere else - they'll send you what you want right away.
Depends on Your Rep (Score:2)
For OTS, ZipZoomFly all the way (Score:2)
You get what you pay for (Score:2)
If you really want good service, you need to have an
McMaster Carr (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a computer supply company and my personal experiences with them have been non-commercial and always to the same address, but McMaster Carr [mcmaster.com] is by far my favorite online store.
I first visited it on a recommendation of a friend; we needed very specific fittings for a potato cannon that we were building, and the parts were nowhere to be found in any of the hardware stores we drove to. I ordered the parts on a Tuesday around noon, and the parts were waiting in the mailbox the next day when I got home around 6. I think they came UPS or FedEx but it was a few years ago so I don't recall exactly. I had similar experiences with the rest of my orders from them (2 or 3 more orders). Also, most of their inventory is geared towards commercial purposes, so even though my order was non-commercial, I believe that they deal with companies regularly.
Want keyed Torx wrenches? Want a fire hose nozzle? Want an 18" long 0.25" diameter drill bit? No problem.
McMaster is INCREDIBLE... (Score:5, Informative)
An incredible catalog, nearly everything actually IN STOCK, and friendly people who answer the phone and actually know what they are talking about. The prices are a bit higher than most other suppliers, but thye convenience is well worth it...
Re:McMaster is INCREDIBLE... (Score:3, Interesting)
As a mechanical designer who works mostly on computers, I find both of them to provide the incredibly valuable service of helping me select and source different
Re:McMaster Carr (Score:3, Funny)
One more plug for Newegg & CDW (Score:4, Informative)
Not to long ago they tried doing what every other store does, try to deceive you with pre-calculated rebate prices in large fonts with the pocket cost in fine print. I emailed a polite letter that I was displeased with this format change and my opinion of deceptive practices and given the change I would no longer be recommending them as a supplier. They replied that it was necessary to stay competitive, especially with the price comparison sites. Nevertheless, a couple weeks later the original, honerst pricing was back in place. I doubt that my email alone was instrumental, but it put them back on my "recommended" list, plus I provide this anecdote.
CDW: Good pricing, for Chicago area great for same day pickup/delivery. If you get you order in before noon (not exact, contact your sales rep for true cutoff) their messanger pricing are on par with next day delivery. Will-Call pickup at the Vernon Hills warehouse is very responsive, I frequently place an order after 5PM on the web site and arrive just before 7PM closing and am back out the door in 10 minutes or less. If they would open an hour earlier and stay open an hour later 8AM-8PM, they would be near perfect.
Both these companies are worthy of your business.
Great experiences with PC Connection (Score:4, Informative)
My particular account manager has been fanstastic. When Airborne lost my order, she even had someone pick another order from the warehouse on a Sunday morning, and had Airborne deliver it same day (again, on a Sunday) so I could make a Monday deadline.
Whee (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have no money, but you still want to be able to restore your system from disaster within a certain timeframe, you must of course ensure you are able to do that yourself with the parts and equipment you have on hand.
Service contracts and big vendors: Sun, HP, IBM (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of our gear is Sun (~100 mid-sized servers, say 6CPU each on average), and production is under expensive service contracts. When something goes boom, Sun is onsite, diagnosing as necessary and repairing ASAP. Parts orders are delivered in one hour. This is how you run a business.
It's not expensive service, it's cheap insurance for the company.
Re:Service contracts & big vendors: Cisco, Jun (Score:3, Interesting)
All the big name vendors in every field, Sun and HP in servers, Cisco and Juniper in networking, etc, have service and support contract options. With Sun and Cisco, you have to be within a 3 hour drive of their warehouse to qualify, Dell will sell you a 4 hour contract even if the server is on top of a remote moun
As unpopular as this is likely to be... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never had any trouble overnighting and same-daying server parts; and in addition all the servers are parts and function interchangeable, so usually when something breaks I can either scavenge parts from something else, or move the service to a less used machine, and get the replacement parts in less than 12 hours.
I supposed there's cheaper options out there (actually, I'm less and less convinced of that), but Dell has been working very well for us.
have spares (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone will claim you can't keep a backup of a big database server or other huge machine and the solution to that is redesign the problem so it uses several smaller and cheaper servers.
Another solution is run your disaster recovery site live.
ALWAYS ALWAYS know a local supplier. (Score:3, Informative)
For the mechanically inclined, there's McMaster-Carr [mcmaster.com].
If you're in the same city like I was, you could order and one thousand reverse-threaded titanium compact swivel joints (real product!) would appear on your doorstep in two hours. Providing that's what you ordered, of course.
your question is too general (Score:3, Informative)
hardware and OS, i've had the best experience with sun, especially if you have both sunspectrum and sunsolve. hands done, excellent response time, even if you have the silver or bronze level(4 or 8 hour) response.
OS itself, once again sun, i've also recently been impressed with redhat. i was calling on behave of a client, and the person answering the phone was the tech i worked with, no dilly-dicking around with traffickers trying to figure out who to directo your call too. not bad.
commodity hardware(x86 equipment) i'd say dell, then gateway. once you've set up a business account and done a little business, you get your company advocate, and it's actually nice to be able to talk to someone who has a record of all the shit you bought from them. their desktop/servers are BTO, but replacement parts which are RMA'ed usually ship next day.
for random components and parts, microcenter. i'm sure tiger and frye's are comparable. it's nice to be able to walk in, scan the shelves, and pick up the part you need (HD, optical, memory, mobo, etc), and if they don't have the part you were looking for, it's easy to check out what your alternatives are.
keep basic spare parts on your shelf (HD, optical, memory, power supply, usb hubs and cables) and have a decent toolkit and a bin of itty bitty spare pieces (jumpers, standoffs)...
lastly keep a few online vendors handy, with credit card or corporate accounts available for bigger ticket items.
i usually rotate between CDW, newegg, and pc/mac mall. when i absolutely need a part sometimes i'll order from a couple vendors and either keep one on the shelf as a spare, or return the extra via RMA. if you are a regular, most of these outfits won't mind(regular means more than a couple hondo a year...) if you use CDW, they often have a supply depot in major metro areas, so you might even be able to messenger/will call your parts.
last shop i worked at we had 1 spare pc, 1 spare inkjet printer, 1 spare laser printer, 1 spare mac, multiple spare monitors, a couple spare switches, 1 spare cell phone, in addition to the spare components and parts. the pc and mac had a base os install and apps suite. if we had a machine that took more than an hour to repair, we'd drop the spare in it's place and promise to return the fixed machine the next day. i also always standardized on specific brand components, i.e. seagate HD's , kingston memory, sony monitors, etc, so when swapping out components became easier to maintain.
good luck with your seach for a new vendor...
Forget the "ship it" crap (Score:3, Informative)
The only computer stuff I've bought online or mail-order in the last year is the notebook PC I'm typing this on, because I wanted a specific model that I couldn't find stocked at any of the above places.
And I do agree with what others have said. If its that mission critical, I have spares on hand. And when you use the next-to-last spare, its time to acquire more, don't wait until you use the last one.
Re:newegg (Score:2)
That said, I'd order from 'em again.
Re:newegg (Score:2)
Re:newegg (Score:3, Informative)
Newegg is great for personal stuff, but this is a business issue; you can't wait a couple days for something to come, usually. Plus, when stock runs out on Newegg, they are sometimes slow at getting replacements (my experience).
Dell service plans weren't too bad when we used them back at college, but other than that, I'm not really sure. I've also been a fan of having backup gear on hand just in case; why build (or buy) one when you can build two for twice the price? (from "Contact" or something like th
Re:newegg (Score:2, Insightful)
although ever since newegg opened the separate warehouse on the east coast, their shipping has gotten a lot slower. it's typical to have half your order shipped from CA and the rest from the east coast 3 days later.
Re:newegg (Score:2)