Dell R310

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I am looking to co-locate a Dell R310 to backup two servers we have have.

Couple of questions:
1) What is dells '4 hour business critical support' actually like?
2) When configuring the server, is it best I get RAM from dell or is it cheaper to buy this separately?
3) Same for HDD's

Any other advice?
 
1) Can vary. I've seen parts arrive in 2 hours. Sometimes next day. The contracts have many clauses in them. If the server is in London the service should be pretty good.

2) Buying 3rd party ram could invalidate your warranty

3) See above. :p
 
Well we have dell 4 hour responce and its very good. Weve had disks on site in a couple of hours.

We try to buy everything as one so its all under one contract and saves staff opening a box swapping ram/Disks and reloading a OS.

My advice would be to ring dell direct as they offer discounts sometimes to people over the phone.
 
thanks for the replies.

This might sound a bit ridiculous, but how different is working on a server to a home desktop?

I.E is replacing a motherboard as easy as a normal desktop? (Apart from the more confined space)?

@matthab are your servers in London? I am thinking about co-locating in Newcastle, which is off the beaten track for the norm I suppose.
 
The big difference between working on a server and your home desktop is that you dont get fired if you screw the hardware up in your desktop.... a little bit OTT i know, but its all down to risk, and consequences of downtime. If your server is down which people are relying upon then the best idea is to have an expert (i.e. the manufacturer of said server) on standby to fix the hardware should it fail.

The other aspect is that the average rack server is far more densely packed inside the chassis than a normal desktop, but the packaging of the hardware is generally toolless and easy to pull apart (generally :))

FYI, we arent in London either (Midlands) and still get 4hr response most of the time. Works great.
 
Are Dell servers any better these days? I remember about 5 years back doing datacentre ops on a contract, and there were easily more issues/lockups with Dell servers than anything else. It put me off the idea of ever using them for anything critical! :eek:
 
Nope our servers are on site. Long time since Ive worked at a company who outsources.

Also try looking at somewhere like Rackspace who can manage it all for you?

Dell servers are very good we have ones that just refuse to die.
 
matthab said:
Nope our servers are on site. Long time since Ive worked at a company who outsources.

Also try looking at somewhere like Rackspace who can manage it all for you?

Dell servers are very good we have ones that just refuse to die.
Click to expand...

we already have managed servers, but I want a backup server which we can backup data to in a secure environment (not just our office).

Also I don't want to rent servers for the rest of my days, there is nothing really but experience stopping me from just co-locating everything so have to start somewhere and a non-critical server is the best place to start I suppose.
 
What makes you think renting a server is bad? Personally I wouldn't do it any other way.

What happens if a client needs a restore and the motherboard dies on your backup server? The client going to be happy to wait 4 odd hours for the replacement parts?

A good hosting company will have onsite parts and should have you up and running very quickly without (hopefully) you having to rely on parts to be shipped from Dell etc. Your not really asking for something too unique which would eliminate you from renting a server (unless you already have the server).

In the past I've had HP take over 1 day to provide parts for a broken server as they didn't have any parts available. :(
 
In hardware terms working on a server is generally far easier - almost everything is simple clips - designed to allow a fast turnaround - for people like Dell it makes them cheaper to offer support since people are generally far more expensive than the hardware (to the manufacturer, not necesscerily to the end-user).

Changing a mobo on a desktop is usually a faff - especially if it's a home-brew type one - business desktops tend to be easier, servers even better.
 
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