Discussion on:
View:
Show:
Great post Erik, but I would be careful lumping all "white-box" system builders together as unreliable. Like any vendor selection, customers should do their homework before selecting a system vendor be they a large OEM, or a smaller local system builder. If system building is their core competency, Perhaps the problems you have experienced have been with "white-box" systems that came from companies that simply dabble in the system building space, and not the guys that have made it their living for the last 2 decades. Just a thought...
Litmus test for an amateur - Still insists that whitebox is better for business. You're stepping over a dollar to earn another dime if you believe that white box is better. Need that custom touch? getting reamed on upgrades? or can't quite get that configuration you're looking for from the Major brand?... Just use the Major as the barebone and add the additional components to meet the specifications your client needs and still enjoy the better materials and uniformity of look and feel the Majors offer.
The major brands have engineered their computers. They have tested their components for performance, integration, compatibility and reliability. Drivers and firmware are far easier to find which eases upkeep, maintenance, and serviceability. They stock the parts, putting them a phone call away when a warranty issue arises. If your whitebox fails, that POS reflects poorly upon you and your consultancy... meanwhile it's your un-billable time going down the toilet to troubleshoot it inside of your warranty period. If you sold them a Major, you can charge the client to troubleshoot it and leave it to the Major to dispatch the parts and even a tech to replace the part. Your whitebox junkyard hodgepodge computer parts require a time consuming and painful 2 to 8 week RMA process or searching for a part off the shelf to fix the issue (what an unproductive waste of time) Did somebody voice a concern that another contracted company by the Major will be visiting your customer to service the computer under warranty? Fine by me - a good consultant is akin to a Surgeon and swapping parts is like cleaning bedpans. No technician has ever threatened to take my clients because my clients know and can FEEL that I have their best business interests in mind. Did somebody say you can charge them to service your whitebox? As previously suggested, what a sleeze. Clients would often prefer to spend that same money with you doing something creative and productive instead of wasting time money and productivity on your break/fix profiteering.
Consulting to a business is more than just turning a buck on reselling hardware. The money is not in the hardware, it's in the service. You waste your time building and servicing whiteboxes. Selling high quality Major hardware is a value added service you provide to your clients while also giving you a vehicle in which to deliver even more SERVICE. Offering competitive prices on hardware is a rat race best left to the Majors who have the buying power to compete - focus on SERVICE, and not eeking a few more dollars out of hodgepodge junkyard collages of sunday special parts which will ultimately cost you and your client in wasted time, money, and productivity down the road.
The major brands have engineered their computers. They have tested their components for performance, integration, compatibility and reliability. Drivers and firmware are far easier to find which eases upkeep, maintenance, and serviceability. They stock the parts, putting them a phone call away when a warranty issue arises. If your whitebox fails, that POS reflects poorly upon you and your consultancy... meanwhile it's your un-billable time going down the toilet to troubleshoot it inside of your warranty period. If you sold them a Major, you can charge the client to troubleshoot it and leave it to the Major to dispatch the parts and even a tech to replace the part. Your whitebox junkyard hodgepodge computer parts require a time consuming and painful 2 to 8 week RMA process or searching for a part off the shelf to fix the issue (what an unproductive waste of time) Did somebody voice a concern that another contracted company by the Major will be visiting your customer to service the computer under warranty? Fine by me - a good consultant is akin to a Surgeon and swapping parts is like cleaning bedpans. No technician has ever threatened to take my clients because my clients know and can FEEL that I have their best business interests in mind. Did somebody say you can charge them to service your whitebox? As previously suggested, what a sleeze. Clients would often prefer to spend that same money with you doing something creative and productive instead of wasting time money and productivity on your break/fix profiteering.
Consulting to a business is more than just turning a buck on reselling hardware. The money is not in the hardware, it's in the service. You waste your time building and servicing whiteboxes. Selling high quality Major hardware is a value added service you provide to your clients while also giving you a vehicle in which to deliver even more SERVICE. Offering competitive prices on hardware is a rat race best left to the Majors who have the buying power to compete - focus on SERVICE, and not eeking a few more dollars out of hodgepodge junkyard collages of sunday special parts which will ultimately cost you and your client in wasted time, money, and productivity down the road.
I was thinking the same thing, recommend an OEM, and you're probably the rookie. Sure you might have other things to do, but this is something that can make you look good too.
1. Buy a Dell, you must have their proprietary PSU's.
2. Buy an OEM PC, you get a license bound to their system. Enterprise licensing is easier to work with.
3. Buy a whitebox and you control the hardware which doesn't change on the whim of the OEM.
4. What's generally a Whitebox anyways, but an Intel chipset (assuming you're going with Intel). Just use Intel motherboards.
5. Buy an OEM get to use Decrapifier, yeah. No I want a bare OS install without all of the 3rd party crap.
6. Buy an OEM, spend at least an hour on the phone talking to some idiot about what your problem is so that you can get a swap. Probably from India. Uber frustrating. Swap a motherboard, PSU or HD, minutes to maybe 1 hour if you're slow.
7. Go to the local BB or Tigerdirect or Frys for basic hardware replacement like drives or even specialty cases.
"selling high quality Major hardware is a vallue added service you provide", right and next week the receptionist is calling Dell to place an order since just about anyone can order a pc. Certainly there are variables, but your needed expertise is significantly reduced when the task to perform it is too simple to perform.
My stance is that my customer wants the highest uptime. Doesn't care if you blame it on HP or Dell for their system unit, they need it working. As anyone does in our IT world. Just from many of the points I stated, I would end up saving the customer money, not costing them. Even if it were a wash in my time the focus of uptime is of higher regard.
1. Buy a Dell, you must have their proprietary PSU's.
2. Buy an OEM PC, you get a license bound to their system. Enterprise licensing is easier to work with.
3. Buy a whitebox and you control the hardware which doesn't change on the whim of the OEM.
4. What's generally a Whitebox anyways, but an Intel chipset (assuming you're going with Intel). Just use Intel motherboards.
5. Buy an OEM get to use Decrapifier, yeah. No I want a bare OS install without all of the 3rd party crap.
6. Buy an OEM, spend at least an hour on the phone talking to some idiot about what your problem is so that you can get a swap. Probably from India. Uber frustrating. Swap a motherboard, PSU or HD, minutes to maybe 1 hour if you're slow.
7. Go to the local BB or Tigerdirect or Frys for basic hardware replacement like drives or even specialty cases.
"selling high quality Major hardware is a vallue added service you provide", right and next week the receptionist is calling Dell to place an order since just about anyone can order a pc. Certainly there are variables, but your needed expertise is significantly reduced when the task to perform it is too simple to perform.
My stance is that my customer wants the highest uptime. Doesn't care if you blame it on HP or Dell for their system unit, they need it working. As anyone does in our IT world. Just from many of the points I stated, I would end up saving the customer money, not costing them. Even if it were a wash in my time the focus of uptime is of higher regard.
If you don't know, anyone can buy a business line Dell computer. There is no crap [or at worse very little].
Second, I worked for a multinational company. We used our enterprise licenses on the Dell systems. Not OEMs.
Enterprises also have the premier support line from Dell. You call up a specific number and you get a more senior technician online usually in a couple of minutes. No bull crap from some junior techie who knows nothing.
But as the article stated, this is about consultants - not an enterprise. Anyone can still buy the business line and not get hit with the crap.
Second, I worked for a multinational company. We used our enterprise licenses on the Dell systems. Not OEMs.
Enterprises also have the premier support line from Dell. You call up a specific number and you get a more senior technician online usually in a couple of minutes. No bull crap from some junior techie who knows nothing.
But as the article stated, this is about consultants - not an enterprise. Anyone can still buy the business line and not get hit with the crap.
Perhaps in Major U.S. Cities you can have service. I work in Asia, where the Dealers only sell. Even the Service Centers only have a few parts in stock. The "Major Brands" have the 6-8 Week RMA turn around. it is the components that I can swap out in a few days, typically 2 days for any failure, (which is very rare). the "Trained Service Techs", are even less helpful than trying to use the Call support. 1st Answer to any question is A:"Reformat, reinstall", User:"but I just wanted to update my video driver which isn't on the website", (actually happen, the driver was on the UK website just not the Asian site). Next starting in 1983, the idea of "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM", Really? do you remember the 5Mb IBM HDDs where if you bumped the table the HDD would crash. or what about the PS2 Line, or ... (many examples). Now IBM, HP are at least 6-8 months behind on Hardware design updates. Worse their support of Hardware invitation has or Design leadership has really fallen. Please don't try and tell me that Dell, IBM, HP actually test the computers assembled for them, (check it out they don't actually manufacture their PC Hardware). the "Feel" of the system, really? I order a "Standard Desktop", I don't want the media Keyboard, I don't want speakers, I don't need Crap Ware. I am forced to re-install so that I can configure the system correctly for our work. They don't have the display options for HDMI except for a few "Performance" models. I want to add USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, or even eSATA, i have few if any choices.
Actually the On-Site service, must be limited now days due to security, compliance and Integrity issues. I cannot allow a tech who i have no control over touch any machine with Sensitive data, (customer Information, or any Intellectual Property). Under the current rules to send a system for a motherboard RMA, I need to install a new Clean HDD, but that voids the warranty. If I Wipe the drive, can I "Prove" it is unrecoverable?
Here we have offices that can reach over 40c on weekends, and currently HP computers fail, Dells must be shut down, and IBMs we add floor standing fans to keep circulate air, but shut down on long weekends. Yes, to save energy ($$), people turn off the A/C throughout a building. So I must build White box systems (black case) using Intel Mother boards, Gamer Power supplies, and Gamer fans. Yes the LED lights make things interesting, but the systems stay within operating temperatures and can run 24/7/365.
Summary - RULE 1: Systems must be designed for the use, and environment they will be used in.
Rule 2: Problems or Questions See Rule 1
That is the requirement that many forget, or don't understand. Blanket statements that all White Boxes are bad, or All IBMs systems are Good, just isn't factual in the Real World of IT systems.
Actually the On-Site service, must be limited now days due to security, compliance and Integrity issues. I cannot allow a tech who i have no control over touch any machine with Sensitive data, (customer Information, or any Intellectual Property). Under the current rules to send a system for a motherboard RMA, I need to install a new Clean HDD, but that voids the warranty. If I Wipe the drive, can I "Prove" it is unrecoverable?
Here we have offices that can reach over 40c on weekends, and currently HP computers fail, Dells must be shut down, and IBMs we add floor standing fans to keep circulate air, but shut down on long weekends. Yes, to save energy ($$), people turn off the A/C throughout a building. So I must build White box systems (black case) using Intel Mother boards, Gamer Power supplies, and Gamer fans. Yes the LED lights make things interesting, but the systems stay within operating temperatures and can run 24/7/365.
Summary - RULE 1: Systems must be designed for the use, and environment they will be used in.
Rule 2: Problems or Questions See Rule 1
That is the requirement that many forget, or don't understand. Blanket statements that all White Boxes are bad, or All IBMs systems are Good, just isn't factual in the Real World of IT systems.
While they may be more solid than someone's base CHEAP chosen components white-box... Not every area is covered by a nearby and local Warranty coverage center, and will need to ship units off... serious downtime can result costing the business serious money. QUALITY parts is what the white-box vendor needs to focus on, they focus on that, and the downtime can be even smaller and less expensive than a major brand.
Also, most components in a white-box are easier to get, and don't cost an arm and a leg like most average parts do from major brands.
OEMs go as cheap as they can get away with, so don't kid yourself. Then they rake you over the coals for parts and can take a while to deliver.
Also, most components in a white-box are easier to get, and don't cost an arm and a leg like most average parts do from major brands.
OEMs go as cheap as they can get away with, so don't kid yourself. Then they rake you over the coals for parts and can take a while to deliver.
So many pieces of trash sold by large companies.
Yes your low end components failed.
Upgrade your pc with a BX style board and no extra ports for anything.
How about the old days with the special floppy for 150$ that the computer won't boot without
Yes your low end components failed.
Upgrade your pc with a BX style board and no extra ports for anything.
How about the old days with the special floppy for 150$ that the computer won't boot without
I think i might still have one of those old machines in my loft.
half the bios was on the computer and the other half was on a floppy disk.
without the floppy disk to start the computer up you couldn't access anything or load an os as the computer didn't know what was installed.
half the bios was on the computer and the other half was on a floppy disk.
without the floppy disk to start the computer up you couldn't access anything or load an os as the computer didn't know what was installed.
If system building is your core competency, than general business computer network consulting probably isn't.
So if my skills are general business computer network consulting, I wouldn't know how to build a computer system?
Huh? How can you properly build a network without knowing the clients you have on the network you must service. Or how do you build a computer without knowing what your building it for to access? You would need both sides of knowledge.
Of course if you boss understands both sides and you're just following directions building a system, then you're probably just a high school grad because it doesn't take much to follow a few steps in building what someone else has already determined will work. There's a value add.
Huh? How can you properly build a network without knowing the clients you have on the network you must service. Or how do you build a computer without knowing what your building it for to access? You would need both sides of knowledge.
Of course if you boss understands both sides and you're just following directions building a system, then you're probably just a high school grad because it doesn't take much to follow a few steps in building what someone else has already determined will work. There's a value add.
Dont agree. How can a consultant recommend a solution if he isnt competent ?
that you don't get people specifically to handle hardware assembly and testing while you concentrate on the consulting.
Too bad you have a limited view.
Too bad you have a limited view.
I agree with Mark. Erik while you may have experienced various issues with white box installations, as rightfully raised by Mark, selecting a white box vendor is as important as the selections process for one of the larger guys. I have worked with white box vendors that have had installations running for several years with out some of the issues listed in your post. Oh and yes it was legal software..:) However the software issue is not just a white box issue but that of the consultant who is willing to allow it to happen on his watch. As a consultant myself I have repeatedly documented the illegal software in an establishment and brought it to the attention of the organizations leadership. In cases where no effort was made to correct the situation I left the consultancy. This a hard choice to make but usually once they the client is interested in moving their business forward and staying out of legal trouble a solution is usually forthcoming even if you have to wait a bit...
Spock2428
Spock2428
Those vendors will buy THE cheapest parts possible and throw the system together based on these should work. Skimp on a power supply, I don't care WHO builds it, and I've seen many an el-cheapo PSU stuck in a name-brand PC, ready to take out the rest of your computer if you're unlucky (and lucky if it is the only thing that dies.) Admittedly in the consumer market, where most of my client base lies.
I agree, build with quality components, and you'll get more than 18 months out of a white-box. The vendors who want to maximize profits at any cost will buy the cheapest, only to have them fail when least convenient. Vendors who only go with proven quality parts can build a running system that will outlast a few generations of improvements. I don't care if you're white-box builder/vendor or a multi-million dollar OEM... if you skimp, you will hurt the client in the end.
CHECK THE VENDOR out closely, and don't necessarily go for the lowest price units, white-box or major name.
I agree, build with quality components, and you'll get more than 18 months out of a white-box. The vendors who want to maximize profits at any cost will buy the cheapest, only to have them fail when least convenient. Vendors who only go with proven quality parts can build a running system that will outlast a few generations of improvements. I don't care if you're white-box builder/vendor or a multi-million dollar OEM... if you skimp, you will hurt the client in the end.
CHECK THE VENDOR out closely, and don't necessarily go for the lowest price units, white-box or major name.
My white box is 4 years old without system failure of any kind. As Mark pointed out, the key is choosing a white box vendor who is experienced, stable and honest.
I will usually spec Dell workstations or servers for all the reasons cited (or whatever the client wants it there's brand loyalty), but there's some applications that require a custom touch.
We have a firewall, router, IDS appliance that's about 7" x 9", costs under a grand installed and configured, and consumes around 14W under typical use. It has 4 network interfaces, is wall / panel mount and is tamper resistant. It runs an embedded form of Linux (custom) and administration is by VPN, local web, or serial (CLI). Security is completely configurable with the ability to script responses to threats which execute in real time.
To meet the need, we became the "white box" dealer of this semi-custom device. Reliability is absolutely rock solid in the last 3 years we've had the system deployed; no hardware failures and only 24 minutes of unscheduled downtime in 3 years of operation, with none in the last 14 months... you do the math.
We are testing a derivative of this machine as a small soho file server with excellent results. Other applications we are testing range from VoIP to turnkey application server appliances. The current system serves network, phones, firewall, application and file server for a small office (6 workstations) and occupies a panel 30" wide, 36" high, and less than 3" deep with cable management and air handling. It takes no room even in the tightest office, consuming around 55W at the plug. Our beta client is overjoyed.
My point? This isn't something we can get from a major vendor, and I suspect its not the only time innovation has to walk away from the known quantity of a major brand. If the major brand fits the need, use it. If not, rather than make it fit, build a real solution. The only thing is use real engineering in component selection and construction, otherwise it won't last.
We have a firewall, router, IDS appliance that's about 7" x 9", costs under a grand installed and configured, and consumes around 14W under typical use. It has 4 network interfaces, is wall / panel mount and is tamper resistant. It runs an embedded form of Linux (custom) and administration is by VPN, local web, or serial (CLI). Security is completely configurable with the ability to script responses to threats which execute in real time.
To meet the need, we became the "white box" dealer of this semi-custom device. Reliability is absolutely rock solid in the last 3 years we've had the system deployed; no hardware failures and only 24 minutes of unscheduled downtime in 3 years of operation, with none in the last 14 months... you do the math.
We are testing a derivative of this machine as a small soho file server with excellent results. Other applications we are testing range from VoIP to turnkey application server appliances. The current system serves network, phones, firewall, application and file server for a small office (6 workstations) and occupies a panel 30" wide, 36" high, and less than 3" deep with cable management and air handling. It takes no room even in the tightest office, consuming around 55W at the plug. Our beta client is overjoyed.
My point? This isn't something we can get from a major vendor, and I suspect its not the only time innovation has to walk away from the known quantity of a major brand. If the major brand fits the need, use it. If not, rather than make it fit, build a real solution. The only thing is use real engineering in component selection and construction, otherwise it won't last.
The example given about the generic clone being built as a perimeter network device or appliance is an exception to the rule and/or highly specialized. I'm also of the opinion that using a Major brand as a barebone is a better place to start on a custom build.
Hmmm I applaud your innovation. I also support the key concept that good engineering is required in component selection and construction. This is key to delivering a solid system that is reliable. In addition you would have to log all your installations and the components used so should a failure occur i.e. brownout, bad wiring, lightning strike etc. your replacement time would be short and uptime can be restored in the interest of the client.
All components are tracked for QA as are the installations. We are building a knowledge base for troubleshooting issues as well as providing the customer with a full manual including serial numbers of all parts.
...for doing the exact opposite!
If white-box installations are so bad as all that, then you will make more money fixing the problems (and the customer will have a little spare cash saved by not buying name brand stuff). Alternatively, if the white-box units perform OK, you will be a hero for saving them money. Sounds like a win-win for both consultant and customer to me!
If white-box installations are so bad as all that, then you will make more money fixing the problems (and the customer will have a little spare cash saved by not buying name brand stuff). Alternatively, if the white-box units perform OK, you will be a hero for saving them money. Sounds like a win-win for both consultant and customer to me!
how is it a "win" for both sides if you give them an unreliable solution that turns into a situation where you're billing them more hours? sounds kind of sleazy to me
that the brand name machines also often has warranty support?
So, the bulk of faulty brand name machines will have support handled by a vendor-authorized company, and not yours?
I have no doubt that there are bad white-box makers, and likely the cost-cutting aspect of the matter means more ill-fitting component combinations and lower grade parts on average, compared to brand-name machines.
But that doesn't mean that the brand name manufacturers have a magical ability to build better machines. I'll wager that it is possible to custom build a machine to be better than a crap-ware laden brand name device. It may require more expertise than the average white-boxer has, though.
So, the bulk of faulty brand name machines will have support handled by a vendor-authorized company, and not yours?
I have no doubt that there are bad white-box makers, and likely the cost-cutting aspect of the matter means more ill-fitting component combinations and lower grade parts on average, compared to brand-name machines.
But that doesn't mean that the brand name manufacturers have a magical ability to build better machines. I'll wager that it is possible to custom build a machine to be better than a crap-ware laden brand name device. It may require more expertise than the average white-boxer has, though.
Both Dell and HP have gone through some significant quality dips in the past.
How does one track the performance of DIY generic white box server platforms over the last 20 years?
You really can't, can you? On the component level, we know ASUS has had quality dips, MSI has had quality dips. Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum, Fujitsu... the hard drive vendors are constantly swapping places at a commodity level for favor in the DIY community.
But there is no way to say, "Brand X Generic DIY Server has had generally GOOD or generally BAD performance", because they're a non-entity. There is no "brand-x". It is whatever some guy ordered from Tiger Direct or put together on his own bench from parts he bought at Fry's.
You really can't, can you? On the component level, we know ASUS has had quality dips, MSI has had quality dips. Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum, Fujitsu... the hard drive vendors are constantly swapping places at a commodity level for favor in the DIY community.
But there is no way to say, "Brand X Generic DIY Server has had generally GOOD or generally BAD performance", because they're a non-entity. There is no "brand-x". It is whatever some guy ordered from Tiger Direct or put together on his own bench from parts he bought at Fry's.
.... and it feels like they have their warranty down to a science. The machines that are five years old seem to be dropping like flies. The machines that are just moving beyond their three year extended (Gold) warranty are starting to experience problems where as last year I rarely ever had Help Desk report a user issue with those machines. Now RAM is failing. Motherboards dying. Power supplies giving up the ghost....
All while my custom builds at home are all still going strong. Advantage for the big boxes, is that their quality assurance maintains a process that gets their systems to survive to a reasonable warranty period. White box builders (like myself--outside my day job) don't have the resources to control our parts that rigidly. Instead I research the parts I intend to use. Is that ASUS motherboard getting a lot of RMA or other complaints, etc.? Does that company have a history of bad parts? And then, there is some things I have learned because I actually chose to specialize in my skills of system building. If I didn't chose to pick a specialty, I would just build generic systems. And they still sort of are, but by studying a little I then learn some of the strengths and weaknesses of AMD versus Intel, AMD versus Nvidia, SSD versus spinning disk HDD, and so forth. From security concerns to multi-media, to power consumption, to computing power, and on.... And the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know everything.
All while my custom builds at home are all still going strong. Advantage for the big boxes, is that their quality assurance maintains a process that gets their systems to survive to a reasonable warranty period. White box builders (like myself--outside my day job) don't have the resources to control our parts that rigidly. Instead I research the parts I intend to use. Is that ASUS motherboard getting a lot of RMA or other complaints, etc.? Does that company have a history of bad parts? And then, there is some things I have learned because I actually chose to specialize in my skills of system building. If I didn't chose to pick a specialty, I would just build generic systems. And they still sort of are, but by studying a little I then learn some of the strengths and weaknesses of AMD versus Intel, AMD versus Nvidia, SSD versus spinning disk HDD, and so forth. From security concerns to multi-media, to power consumption, to computing power, and on.... And the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know everything.
Instead... buying Dell and having a product life cycle for your corporate systems is what scales. As you point out, most of them are going to last the warranty period without any problems, and the warranty period defines the life-cycle you expect out of your platforms. When they're rolling out of warranty, it is almost always a better choice to recycle than to extend warranty period... especially in mission critical enterprise servers where downtime is unacceptable - covered by warranty or not.
Linux guys, white box guys, get caught up on technical details, but they're not good at working with abstract, conceptual ideas related to buisness process. They're the ones who get passionate about a platform and cannot understand why anyone would buy "that other garbage/junk/trash"... but they miss a bigger picture... that their superior solution doesn't extrapolate well to the needs of a larger environment. Spending more up front for the big-box brand and having a shorter life-cycle before refreshes actually increases efficiencies and lowers TCO and increases corporate profits over the long haul. If not, you would see white-box desktops and generic laptops in every fortune 500 in America... and you *don't*. You see Dell, HP, Lenovo. These larger companies gather meaningful metrics to back these decisions. Intel adopted notebooks for almost all of their 75,000 employees around 2001. They checked their numbers against several measures. The up-front costs were far more expensive. The increase in productivity from laptops more than paid for the increased up front costs over the lifetime of the project.
Linux guys, white box guys, get caught up on technical details, but they're not good at working with abstract, conceptual ideas related to buisness process. They're the ones who get passionate about a platform and cannot understand why anyone would buy "that other garbage/junk/trash"... but they miss a bigger picture... that their superior solution doesn't extrapolate well to the needs of a larger environment. Spending more up front for the big-box brand and having a shorter life-cycle before refreshes actually increases efficiencies and lowers TCO and increases corporate profits over the long haul. If not, you would see white-box desktops and generic laptops in every fortune 500 in America... and you *don't*. You see Dell, HP, Lenovo. These larger companies gather meaningful metrics to back these decisions. Intel adopted notebooks for almost all of their 75,000 employees around 2001. They checked their numbers against several measures. The up-front costs were far more expensive. The increase in productivity from laptops more than paid for the increased up front costs over the lifetime of the project.
You quote Intel which sounds like a case study. I would love to see it to get a broader sense of the focus of the article, any chance you have a url?
Most of the vendor authorized company technicians are pretty much just technicians. As a consultant, consider yourself a surgeon and leave the part swapping bedpans to the medical assistants. They're not to be seen as a threat, but as a solution that allows you to spend your time on more productive tasks
I didn't mean that consultancies should be drooling over the support hours. I merely pointed out that Erik Eckel's statistical sampling is invariably skewed; he's never going to see 100% of the Brand Name Failures, because most of those get handled through consumer support. Of course he sees more white boxes, they don't have vendor support!
I'm now hesitant to recommend some bigger name brands (see Sterling's post) to my friends and family because I have had hard drives fail within months, motherboards in a couple years (one was due to ridiculously inadequate cooling of the onboard bridges/video chips). Computers now, generic or otherwise, are built to be cheap so that when they fail, you throw them away and buy another one. Too bad about your data you may have lost and the time wasted and frustration experienced.
I think we're going to reveal an interesting dichotomy here between the white-boxers and the big-boxers, and I think it is going to fall along very familiar lines in general. Nothing absolute, but I predict a general trend that should reveal itself in this discussion.
You confuse your platforms here. Enterprise class rack mount server equipment from all major vendors is absolutely devoid of "bundled crapware".
Desktop machines purchased for business through big-box vendors via commercial accounts are also generally free of bundled crap-ware too.
I think the fact that you focus on consumer purchased desktop boxes illustrates something about where your focus and experience lies. I think that supports the thesis of Erik's article.
The smallest company I've ever worked for ordered desktop PCs dozens at a time, through corporate accounts, and they came with very vanilla OS installs.
Now, when I helped my father-in-law buy a Gateway PC from their consumer services years ago, it arrived buried and burdened with a mountain of bloatware.
But that doesn't seem to be where this conversation is focused.
The brand name manufacturers don't have a magical ability - they have an economy of scale.
I'll wager that it is possible to custom build a machine to be better than a crap-ware laden brand name device. It may require more expertise than the average white-boxer has, though.
This is an interesting observation. To my mind, this is an argument we've had before.
"Is it possible to build Linux boxes better, more secure, more reliable, faster, for a Linux admin with superior expertise?"
But for MOST business, is it more economical, efficient, productive, and sensible to build Win platforms that require less expertise.
I think we see the same principle at play in both examples, and it really is an economy of scale. Good enough results with less effort compared to EXCELLENT results that require impractical efforts to achieve.
When you find a hungry consultant that is willing to work extra hard and devote very high level expertise to deploy a very reliable and robust Linux solution on a DIY white box for relatively little compensation... then this approach might work.
But for most businesses you're going to find employees who want livable salaries and have other interests than spending all their time learning how to make an archane, difficult platform run flawlessly on a budget server. Big Box servers and quality commercial OS platforms are going to dominate in this world.
You confuse your platforms here. Enterprise class rack mount server equipment from all major vendors is absolutely devoid of "bundled crapware".
Desktop machines purchased for business through big-box vendors via commercial accounts are also generally free of bundled crap-ware too.
I think the fact that you focus on consumer purchased desktop boxes illustrates something about where your focus and experience lies. I think that supports the thesis of Erik's article.
The smallest company I've ever worked for ordered desktop PCs dozens at a time, through corporate accounts, and they came with very vanilla OS installs.
Now, when I helped my father-in-law buy a Gateway PC from their consumer services years ago, it arrived buried and burdened with a mountain of bloatware.
But that doesn't seem to be where this conversation is focused.
The brand name manufacturers don't have a magical ability - they have an economy of scale.
I'll wager that it is possible to custom build a machine to be better than a crap-ware laden brand name device. It may require more expertise than the average white-boxer has, though.
This is an interesting observation. To my mind, this is an argument we've had before.
"Is it possible to build Linux boxes better, more secure, more reliable, faster, for a Linux admin with superior expertise?"
But for MOST business, is it more economical, efficient, productive, and sensible to build Win platforms that require less expertise.
I think we see the same principle at play in both examples, and it really is an economy of scale. Good enough results with less effort compared to EXCELLENT results that require impractical efforts to achieve.
When you find a hungry consultant that is willing to work extra hard and devote very high level expertise to deploy a very reliable and robust Linux solution on a DIY white box for relatively little compensation... then this approach might work.
But for most businesses you're going to find employees who want livable salaries and have other interests than spending all their time learning how to make an archane, difficult platform run flawlessly on a budget server. Big Box servers and quality commercial OS platforms are going to dominate in this world.
The big boxes should be able to use their bulk, their best practices, their standardization and their centralized logistics to provide a "good enough box" with a very good bang for the buck.
If they don't get greedy or complacent.
If they don't get greedy or complacent.
"quality commercial OS platforms"
I still can't say that with a straight face...well at least not with up to server03. And yes, I do support Windows servers too. I didn't set them up, but I am stuck with occasional support of them. I actually serve many customers, including heavy use customers processing tons of data running RHEL where the very idea of putting server03 in the datacenter trying to process these loads would make everyone at the company cry.
I'm not a Microsoft hater. But it's a desktop OS.
That said, I agree with generally. However, the issue is a larger one for many "geeks." Commoditization of technology is putting many of us out of business. It's much like people preferring cheap plastic spoons and forks over, say, quality silverware. The market might say, to heck with it, I just need something to eat with.
I'm no longer a white-box guy. There's no market for it, and that's the issue. The market that MIGHT exist for it simply doesn't pay the bills.
"Linux", on the other hand, is in datacenters worldwide. You can trust me on that. Now, it's not because the "keepers of the open-source flame" are doing such a great job. It's there because it is flexible and stable. It's there because unix, which "linux" is a rewrite of, was a solid multitasking, multithreading OS from the beginning. And it's there because so much of the software that runs the Internet is unix/linux based. Unix and Linux definitely scale....much much better than any proprietary solutions.
I don't think MS is in any danger of losing it's dominance, but I don't see scaleability as the driving factor. I see marketing and familiarity as the driving factors.
I still can't say that with a straight face...well at least not with up to server03. And yes, I do support Windows servers too. I didn't set them up, but I am stuck with occasional support of them. I actually serve many customers, including heavy use customers processing tons of data running RHEL where the very idea of putting server03 in the datacenter trying to process these loads would make everyone at the company cry.
I'm not a Microsoft hater. But it's a desktop OS.
That said, I agree with generally. However, the issue is a larger one for many "geeks." Commoditization of technology is putting many of us out of business. It's much like people preferring cheap plastic spoons and forks over, say, quality silverware. The market might say, to heck with it, I just need something to eat with.
I'm no longer a white-box guy. There's no market for it, and that's the issue. The market that MIGHT exist for it simply doesn't pay the bills.
"Linux", on the other hand, is in datacenters worldwide. You can trust me on that. Now, it's not because the "keepers of the open-source flame" are doing such a great job. It's there because it is flexible and stable. It's there because unix, which "linux" is a rewrite of, was a solid multitasking, multithreading OS from the beginning. And it's there because so much of the software that runs the Internet is unix/linux based. Unix and Linux definitely scale....much much better than any proprietary solutions.
I don't think MS is in any danger of losing it's dominance, but I don't see scaleability as the driving factor. I see marketing and familiarity as the driving factors.
Except for the earlier mentioned custom hardware application running Linux; whitebox hardware should NOT be in the business space. LACK OF SUPPORT, who's providing the warranty on these Frankenstein machines??? Most of the time the knuckle head who built the thing is out of business. Nobody ever got fired recommending IBM, Dell, or HP. At least the customer is getting a manufacturers warranty. Easy access to drivers, BIOS, firmware. Try finding that for whitebox machines put together with cheap parts from Asia, forget about documentation. Whitebox PC's are fine for the hobbyist, they have very little place in the business space!!!
I know a CEO that hates HP with a passion and yes, he would fire you for recommending them...
Cheap parts from Asia? Wait a minute. Aren't ALL computer parts from Asia?
Especially I know that DELL computers are made by Foxconn which happens to be the cheapest of all Asian silicon fabs. You know, Foxconn? The place where they are combating a huge worker suicide problem? Yeah, that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
Cheap parts from Asia? Wait a minute. Aren't ALL computer parts from Asia?
Especially I know that DELL computers are made by Foxconn which happens to be the cheapest of all Asian silicon fabs. You know, Foxconn? The place where they are combating a huge worker suicide problem? Yeah, that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
"I know a CEO that hates HP with a passion and yes, he would fire you for recommending them..."
As do I. All it took was dealing with their out-of-warranty support regarding the enclosure on an external tape drive we were having exhaust fan trouble with.
Their Indian technical support specialists (yeah, dealing with business-grade products)called me back with a breathtaking quote of $3500 to replace the enclosure on a tape drive that cost us $1800 four years earlier.
The cost was due to their oddball idea that I wanted on-site support, when I clearly stated in the problem description that I wanted to ship the drive in for repair. Turns out the cost to repair/replace the enclosure would only cost us $780, not that I was willing to trust a word coming out of their mouths at that point...
The drive fixed itself, working great two months after dealing with those morons, who only seem to care about pushing on-site service using the most poorly trained employees they can find in India.
On the other hand, we've had nothing but great success with Dell. I dealt with them regarding an OOW PowerEdge server and their US-based (or Canadian?) support tech was was a pleasure to deal with, competent and right to the point regarding tshooting.. As a bonus, the parts replacement costs were downright CHEAP and we were back up and running within 24 hours. HP would've had us shopping Dell for a new server, I'm sure.
"You know, Foxconn? The place where they are combating a huge worker suicide problem? Yeah, that one."
*shrug* Apple uses them too. Remember that OEM: Oriental Equipment Manufacturer.
No issues with our Dell desktops. The whiteboxes, on the other hand, that were not built by me (meaning good and expensive components) are a bit less reliable.
It sucks to fix them because there is no standard to the crap cases the other guy bought as standard.
As do I. All it took was dealing with their out-of-warranty support regarding the enclosure on an external tape drive we were having exhaust fan trouble with.
Their Indian technical support specialists (yeah, dealing with business-grade products)called me back with a breathtaking quote of $3500 to replace the enclosure on a tape drive that cost us $1800 four years earlier.
The cost was due to their oddball idea that I wanted on-site support, when I clearly stated in the problem description that I wanted to ship the drive in for repair. Turns out the cost to repair/replace the enclosure would only cost us $780, not that I was willing to trust a word coming out of their mouths at that point...
The drive fixed itself, working great two months after dealing with those morons, who only seem to care about pushing on-site service using the most poorly trained employees they can find in India.
On the other hand, we've had nothing but great success with Dell. I dealt with them regarding an OOW PowerEdge server and their US-based (or Canadian?) support tech was was a pleasure to deal with, competent and right to the point regarding tshooting.. As a bonus, the parts replacement costs were downright CHEAP and we were back up and running within 24 hours. HP would've had us shopping Dell for a new server, I'm sure.
"You know, Foxconn? The place where they are combating a huge worker suicide problem? Yeah, that one."
*shrug* Apple uses them too. Remember that OEM: Oriental Equipment Manufacturer.
No issues with our Dell desktops. The whiteboxes, on the other hand, that were not built by me (meaning good and expensive components) are a bit less reliable.
It sucks to fix them because there is no standard to the crap cases the other guy bought as standard.
Yes, our box technically is a "white box", but our support offering is just as good as the big guys. This isn't some frankenstein POS with no engineering behind it that needs the touch of the IT guy who quit last week. That's the difference.
That said, a white box can be made to be as good or better than the name brand stuff, particularly in the desktop department, but you won't get it for the price point you may want.
Bottom line: Support, price, or quality... pick any two.
That said, a white box can be made to be as good or better than the name brand stuff, particularly in the desktop department, but you won't get it for the price point you may want.
Bottom line: Support, price, or quality... pick any two.
I know historically I've come out on the side of buying a major manufacturer, from the business owner's perspective.
But if the consultant is in the business of servicing what they sell, and the business has a long term support contract, then it may be all right.
Whiteboxes may be full of junk parts, or may be spec'd with decent parts. But guess what? So are some of the name brands, especially in the versions marketed to be low price leaders.
Dell doesn't manufacture any parts. They do specify some parts, have them made to order, but others, they just shop for something cheap. Whats worse is that they will sometimes change the spec in the middle of the production run, so that the same model name may have different parts throughout its production life.
My current employer likes to buy in bulk and do mass upgrades every few years. They have been buying Dell. Some of them have been stable workhorses, others have been problematic. For a large enterprise, I think it makes sense to buy from a major maker and rely on the warranty. For small businesses, that rely on consultants, if they have the right consultant that they trust, I think white boxes are an option.
But if the consultant is in the business of servicing what they sell, and the business has a long term support contract, then it may be all right.
Whiteboxes may be full of junk parts, or may be spec'd with decent parts. But guess what? So are some of the name brands, especially in the versions marketed to be low price leaders.
Dell doesn't manufacture any parts. They do specify some parts, have them made to order, but others, they just shop for something cheap. Whats worse is that they will sometimes change the spec in the middle of the production run, so that the same model name may have different parts throughout its production life.
My current employer likes to buy in bulk and do mass upgrades every few years. They have been buying Dell. Some of them have been stable workhorses, others have been problematic. For a large enterprise, I think it makes sense to buy from a major maker and rely on the warranty. For small businesses, that rely on consultants, if they have the right consultant that they trust, I think white boxes are an option.
"Why consultants should not sell generic PCs and servers"
Because it's not 1998 anymore.
Because it's not 1998 anymore.
I agree that the warranty makes the difference and is well worth it for enterprise operations. I have not seen the problems you describe here with any systems I have built. Most people opt to make custom PCs either because it costs less money or they can't get the exact configuration they want from the big boys. That being said I once overheard a past employer say "If I had an Admin that wanted to sit around all day and build all my computers by hand I would fire him". There is a time and a place for everything. When you have a client that owns a small business that needs a custom, purpose built solution and wants to get a good deal on it I see no problem with making something just for them. It should be made clear that there is no warranty beyond what you can offer yourself. Do you want to be supporting these systems or would you rather have DELL do it? Maybe you are the DELL certified repairman for this area and you would do the maintenence yourself anyway. I'll bet if you were, you would rather install a system that you built yourself! (You would know better ;-D)
So I conclude that different things are good for different situations. There is a time and a place for everything and there is no one size fits all solution. If you make rules that you should always do things one way you not only assert that you have thought of everything that could ever possibly happen but you also limit yourself to the decision you made.
So I conclude that different things are good for different situations. There is a time and a place for everything and there is no one size fits all solution. If you make rules that you should always do things one way you not only assert that you have thought of everything that could ever possibly happen but you also limit yourself to the decision you made.
I always include a 6 month warranty, onsite. And because of that, I use quality components, which each have at least a 1 year warranty, some, like memory, are lifetime. When I install Win 7, it doesn't come with tons of bloatware which I have to charge to remove (building a custom Win 7 is faster). I use top quality motherboards, fans, and processors. Memory has a lifetime warranty, motherboard and processors are 3 years, so that's the core system. With a good HDD, it could be 3 or even 5 years. As long as I'm willing to diagnose the problem and RMA the parts, where is the downside for the client? And unless they are running hot computers with vents blocked or they have noisy power and someone accidentally bypassed the UPS, white boxes run for years and often I've recovered the costs of upgrades by selling the old parts!
Your argument really is that suppliers of components make sure IBM, DELL and that lot get the best components. They are getting them cheaper than I can buy them, so the punter is being ****** twice, paying more and getting **** of components. I could replace a motherboard twice or three times with the price charged by IBM and DELL etc and I still have a machine that better matches my technical needs. Please write about something more realistic; I live in 'rip off britain' and I write 'britain' with lower case because that is what it has become, with the influence that comes across from the good ole US of A. So if you are American I can understand your fear of being responsible for supplying a machine without a brand name; but then all Americans are turkeys; bigger versions of the chickens we have in britain.
With the way the USA is going, we will probably have to call this the usa soon, if not already.
As for myself, I believe there is a place for both white boxes and the large systems.
If I manage to land a large client with locations across a few of our States, I might ask a few questions before choosing to recommend white boxes or ordering from a major manufacturer.
1. What sort of response time do they need? Locations out of state I will not be able to respond with onsite service within 24 hours. The big box company can.
2. Are they look for a computer for a task that I am not confident I could support directly?
3. See #1.
I have seen small businesses choosing to go with a local consultant they trust. Some of these consultants set them up with white box, and others had their clients purchase a number of HP/Dell computers (I happened to be coming in to do data migrations hired by the parent company on a contract job to assist these local business owners move data from the corporate PCs to their personal PCs).
So why I choose to build a white box computer over the big name PCs for a customer (outside the support issue I hinted at)? Simple, even using the quality parts, the only big box prices I cannot compete with are the base models. Once you start adding their optional upgrades it quickly becomes just as costly as my builds. As I told someone, I cannot even buy the parts for under $300 including OS but once you get their upgrades I can buy parts to build a nearly comparable system and make my markup and add labor.
Have you looked at the price Dell charges for RAM? It isn't just the upgrade cost, but also the amount they charge to buy it. I was seeing 1 GB sticks for nearly $100 each. Surprising the 2 GB stick was cheaper by a little. And that brand new 4 GB computer? 4 individual sticks of 1 GB RAM. To upgrade from 2 GB of RAM to 4 GB in the customization added $80 to the price (you can buy a FULL 8 GB of RAM for less than that). Some of these repairs can be completed cheap after warranty expires, but the one repair I have trouble with these is the motherboard. In my personal work as a consultant, I had someone with a HP computer with failing motherboard (hdd controller). I told them what their problem was and easily helped them get by a bit longer simply plugging the SATA cable into another port. They had the extended warranty so when the controller finally gave up the ghost they went back to their place of purchase. The store did honor the warranty by giving the a full refund in store credit. They were now without their computer. They asked if they could have it but were denied. When they told me about it, I told them that yes I could have rebuilt them a computer from the parts like they had suspected. I might not be able to get an HP motherboard (the warranty was with the store and not actually HP) but I could have used all the other parts and built a new computer for them saving some $$$. Too bad the store wouldn't let them keep the broken PC, but then their techs probably knew that a consultant like me could have known what the real problem was (instead of the line "it isn't repairable").
At my day job working for a small corporation, I work with Dell PCs. Twenty-six per store, and now approaching 30 stores, plus however many we have at the corporate offices on top of that. I am really grateful that those within warranty that Dell will send a tech to our stores across the US (including Alaska) next day to complete the hardware repairs. However, since we rarely have those break, I am well aware that Dell is making a killing on the service contract. On the other hand, the ones outside of warranty seem to be collecting in a small room and I am often taking parts from multiple broken PCs to put together a working system to keep that portion of our IT infrastructure up and running. Now we were using Windows 2000 PCs still as a part of the mix even as late as last year, which was one of the first projects they had me work on after I was hired on.
The system administrator handles the servers. I don't think of those are white boxes, but I don't recall seeing any Dells or HPs in the network cabinets either. Mostly other brand names specializing in network equipment. Some Dell switches though....
By the way, how quickly we forget that Dell started very small.... so don't knock the white box too hard because the next big box vendor may have been a white box company when it started.
As for myself, I believe there is a place for both white boxes and the large systems.
If I manage to land a large client with locations across a few of our States, I might ask a few questions before choosing to recommend white boxes or ordering from a major manufacturer.
1. What sort of response time do they need? Locations out of state I will not be able to respond with onsite service within 24 hours. The big box company can.
2. Are they look for a computer for a task that I am not confident I could support directly?
3. See #1.
I have seen small businesses choosing to go with a local consultant they trust. Some of these consultants set them up with white box, and others had their clients purchase a number of HP/Dell computers (I happened to be coming in to do data migrations hired by the parent company on a contract job to assist these local business owners move data from the corporate PCs to their personal PCs).
So why I choose to build a white box computer over the big name PCs for a customer (outside the support issue I hinted at)? Simple, even using the quality parts, the only big box prices I cannot compete with are the base models. Once you start adding their optional upgrades it quickly becomes just as costly as my builds. As I told someone, I cannot even buy the parts for under $300 including OS but once you get their upgrades I can buy parts to build a nearly comparable system and make my markup and add labor.
Have you looked at the price Dell charges for RAM? It isn't just the upgrade cost, but also the amount they charge to buy it. I was seeing 1 GB sticks for nearly $100 each. Surprising the 2 GB stick was cheaper by a little. And that brand new 4 GB computer? 4 individual sticks of 1 GB RAM. To upgrade from 2 GB of RAM to 4 GB in the customization added $80 to the price (you can buy a FULL 8 GB of RAM for less than that). Some of these repairs can be completed cheap after warranty expires, but the one repair I have trouble with these is the motherboard. In my personal work as a consultant, I had someone with a HP computer with failing motherboard (hdd controller). I told them what their problem was and easily helped them get by a bit longer simply plugging the SATA cable into another port. They had the extended warranty so when the controller finally gave up the ghost they went back to their place of purchase. The store did honor the warranty by giving the a full refund in store credit. They were now without their computer. They asked if they could have it but were denied. When they told me about it, I told them that yes I could have rebuilt them a computer from the parts like they had suspected. I might not be able to get an HP motherboard (the warranty was with the store and not actually HP) but I could have used all the other parts and built a new computer for them saving some $$$. Too bad the store wouldn't let them keep the broken PC, but then their techs probably knew that a consultant like me could have known what the real problem was (instead of the line "it isn't repairable").
At my day job working for a small corporation, I work with Dell PCs. Twenty-six per store, and now approaching 30 stores, plus however many we have at the corporate offices on top of that. I am really grateful that those within warranty that Dell will send a tech to our stores across the US (including Alaska) next day to complete the hardware repairs. However, since we rarely have those break, I am well aware that Dell is making a killing on the service contract. On the other hand, the ones outside of warranty seem to be collecting in a small room and I am often taking parts from multiple broken PCs to put together a working system to keep that portion of our IT infrastructure up and running. Now we were using Windows 2000 PCs still as a part of the mix even as late as last year, which was one of the first projects they had me work on after I was hired on.
The system administrator handles the servers. I don't think of those are white boxes, but I don't recall seeing any Dells or HPs in the network cabinets either. Mostly other brand names specializing in network equipment. Some Dell switches though....
By the way, how quickly we forget that Dell started very small.... so don't knock the white box too hard because the next big box vendor may have been a white box company when it started.
I generally find that white-box computers offer better value for the smaller client. You need to ensure that quality components are used and do some research, but some installations can save 30 to 40% off the top simply by leaving a badge off it.
Any brand can fail, and thats why local support is important. It was found out by a client who went Apple to find the first machine lasted less than a month (after a month fighting warranty) he got a replacement that lasted just over 6 before it had dramas. He went back to the generic (linux) systems and had no dramas in over 12 months so far. (And would have save excess of $1000 if he went that way to start with.)
Any brand can fail, and thats why local support is important. It was found out by a client who went Apple to find the first machine lasted less than a month (after a month fighting warranty) he got a replacement that lasted just over 6 before it had dramas. He went back to the generic (linux) systems and had no dramas in over 12 months so far. (And would have save excess of $1000 if he went that way to start with.)
I have spoken to many business's that have ordered 30 Dell systems only to send half a dozen back DOA. I spoke to one place last week that had a Dell with a bad board, the tech came out and swapped the board and left. Shortly after she had to reboot and found that this highly trained Dell tech never configured the bios so it was looking for a nonexistent floppy drive. Put this together with Dell, hp, whoevers numerous variations of power supplies and trying to get the right one and a working one at that is a challenge.
Can I build a $500 server better than Dell? No, I wouldn't trust a $500 server with saved games, let alone someone's business. If a white box builder uses QUALITY components, it lasts. I use Intel boards 3 year warranty, chip is the same, I'm a partner I get a replacement next day. Seagate hdd's 3-5 year warranty. I get proven optical drives that aren't expensive. If something goes down, I can go to a store and get a universal replacement not order one from Dell and wait for them to get it right. I have systems in auto garages, offices, and metal shops. I replace systems every 6-8 years. We only replace them because the are slow, not broken. On average, I replace a power supply once in that systems life, maybe a hard drive, that's it.
Can I build a $500 server better than Dell? No, I wouldn't trust a $500 server with saved games, let alone someone's business. If a white box builder uses QUALITY components, it lasts. I use Intel boards 3 year warranty, chip is the same, I'm a partner I get a replacement next day. Seagate hdd's 3-5 year warranty. I get proven optical drives that aren't expensive. If something goes down, I can go to a store and get a universal replacement not order one from Dell and wait for them to get it right. I have systems in auto garages, offices, and metal shops. I replace systems every 6-8 years. We only replace them because the are slow, not broken. On average, I replace a power supply once in that systems life, maybe a hard drive, that's it.
This doesn't make sense from a very simple standpoint: How is, for example, an Intel mainboard manufactured for Dell any better than an Intel mainboard manufactured for open market? Furthermore, from a warranty standpoint, if you're just desiring to be lazy, then yes, an OEM server is better. Again though, nearly all manufacturers (and definitely all the "good" brands) put a three year warranty on their parts. For a third point, ever try to get parts for a 6 year old Dell server? Good luck with that.
It's not a matter of who's badge is on the front. It's a matter of the parts that went into the box. If you are using quality parts, you can build a box with much more capability than OEM for a fraction of the price, and still achieve the same server life span. I built a Windows 2003 SBS server over 7 years ago for a client. At the same time, they were also getting a new Dell server through their POS vendor. The Dell has had to have warranty calls 4 times, and has blown three drives after the warranty was expired. The SBS server blew its first drive last week, and is still providing excellent service. It's a dual-Xeon system with 4GB of RAM, Intel serverboard, Intel server chassis, APC 1500, 8 Ultra320 73GB drives in RAID5 including hotspares, and cost them about $2500 less than the Dell. If it needs parts, we can have them next day. If the Dell needs parts, we are still hunting them down the next day!
I understand that there are definitely scumbags who will build things as cheaply as possible, call it a server because they installed a server OS, and put a 200% markup on their box. In those situations, I would concur that the customer would have been much better of going OEM.
But when you have vendors like Dell pumping out "servers" under that same logic, where you have a Celeron CPU and a single hard drive, they are no better than the lousy whitebox builds.
Last month I worked on a customer's Dell server, which has a Pentium series CPU, and a WD800BB hard drive - not even the JB - and this server is 6 years old. It's a workstation in a big chassis running Std 2003 server OS - but it's by no measure a server.
I really feel that people writing these articles should think a bit more before they put information out there for the world to read, and understand that there are people who read this article who really don't konw, and treat is as fully accurate and complete.
By the way, I have been in this business for over 14 years, and in the 10 years I have been building servers for customers, I have yet to see one fail! The closest we came was a RAID 5 array that had a drive go out, and during the rebuild, a second drive developed issues. That was a very close call, but again, Seagate makes hard drives and sells them to the world in general. Those drives could have just as easily been shipped over to Dell or HP or IBM, and is by no measure an indication of the quality or reliability of the box as a whole.
The quality of a server is no different than the quality of a workstation or laptop. It's all about the quality of the components used in the build, just like anything else. You build it with a bunch of cheap crap, you have a big piece of cheap crap.
The best advice, in summation, is not the badge on the front. Don't let the customer dictate what goes in the box either, as they will certainly opt to forego that expensive hardware RAID, and you end up with onboard SATA RAID that can't keep up when you have more than 3 heavy users. Don't build with cheap components either. Use a solid manufacturer such as Intel or Asus for your motherboard, and do your homework on the chipset, power it with an overly strong PSU, and use reputable drives, such as Seagate. What you will end up with, contrary to the author's beliefs, is a very solid system, with room for growth, ease of maintenance & repair, and no need for a translator and 4 hours of hoop-jumping if a warranty issue pops up!
It's not a matter of who's badge is on the front. It's a matter of the parts that went into the box. If you are using quality parts, you can build a box with much more capability than OEM for a fraction of the price, and still achieve the same server life span. I built a Windows 2003 SBS server over 7 years ago for a client. At the same time, they were also getting a new Dell server through their POS vendor. The Dell has had to have warranty calls 4 times, and has blown three drives after the warranty was expired. The SBS server blew its first drive last week, and is still providing excellent service. It's a dual-Xeon system with 4GB of RAM, Intel serverboard, Intel server chassis, APC 1500, 8 Ultra320 73GB drives in RAID5 including hotspares, and cost them about $2500 less than the Dell. If it needs parts, we can have them next day. If the Dell needs parts, we are still hunting them down the next day!
I understand that there are definitely scumbags who will build things as cheaply as possible, call it a server because they installed a server OS, and put a 200% markup on their box. In those situations, I would concur that the customer would have been much better of going OEM.
But when you have vendors like Dell pumping out "servers" under that same logic, where you have a Celeron CPU and a single hard drive, they are no better than the lousy whitebox builds.
Last month I worked on a customer's Dell server, which has a Pentium series CPU, and a WD800BB hard drive - not even the JB - and this server is 6 years old. It's a workstation in a big chassis running Std 2003 server OS - but it's by no measure a server.
I really feel that people writing these articles should think a bit more before they put information out there for the world to read, and understand that there are people who read this article who really don't konw, and treat is as fully accurate and complete.
By the way, I have been in this business for over 14 years, and in the 10 years I have been building servers for customers, I have yet to see one fail! The closest we came was a RAID 5 array that had a drive go out, and during the rebuild, a second drive developed issues. That was a very close call, but again, Seagate makes hard drives and sells them to the world in general. Those drives could have just as easily been shipped over to Dell or HP or IBM, and is by no measure an indication of the quality or reliability of the box as a whole.
The quality of a server is no different than the quality of a workstation or laptop. It's all about the quality of the components used in the build, just like anything else. You build it with a bunch of cheap crap, you have a big piece of cheap crap.
The best advice, in summation, is not the badge on the front. Don't let the customer dictate what goes in the box either, as they will certainly opt to forego that expensive hardware RAID, and you end up with onboard SATA RAID that can't keep up when you have more than 3 heavy users. Don't build with cheap components either. Use a solid manufacturer such as Intel or Asus for your motherboard, and do your homework on the chipset, power it with an overly strong PSU, and use reputable drives, such as Seagate. What you will end up with, contrary to the author's beliefs, is a very solid system, with room for growth, ease of maintenance & repair, and no need for a translator and 4 hours of hoop-jumping if a warranty issue pops up!
Black boxes are mass-produced. How many CMOSS batteries died prematurely in Dells ? How about the recall for capacitors in Dell GX280s that popped ? As long as a white box is built with quality parts you are fine. I build my own machines three of which are running the latest MS Servers. I have one machine that is 11 years old (soon to be replaced) that has never been even re-imaged.
A white box can be built to your exacting specifications. A white box can be a higher-end build than what you would normally get from a major manufacturer. You look at even the power supply of a HP dc5800 or dc6000 (business class computers) and they only have a 300 Watt power supply. That's fine for most cases cutting it close for higher-end needs. You can argue that there are indeed more headaches and you have to engineer your own system build. Is the quality of a black box acceptable ? Yes. It is definitely convenient.
A white box can be built to your exacting specifications. A white box can be a higher-end build than what you would normally get from a major manufacturer. You look at even the power supply of a HP dc5800 or dc6000 (business class computers) and they only have a 300 Watt power supply. That's fine for most cases cutting it close for higher-end needs. You can argue that there are indeed more headaches and you have to engineer your own system build. Is the quality of a black box acceptable ? Yes. It is definitely convenient.
- Keyboard Shortcuts:
- Prev
- Next
- Toggle
