Re: hardware advice - opinions about HP?

> From: pgsql-performance-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-performance-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Glyn Astill
> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 4:21 AM
> To: M. D.; pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [PERFORM] hardware advice
>
>> From: M. D. <lists(at)turnkey(dot)bz>
>> To: pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org
>> Sent: Friday, 28 September 2012, 18:33
>> Subject: Re: [PERFORM] hardware advice
>>
>> On 09/28/2012 09:57 AM, David Boreham wrote:
>>> On 9/28/2012 9:46 AM, Craig James wrote:
>>>> Your best warranty would be to have the confidence to do your own
>>>> repairs, and to have the parts on hand. I'd seriously consider
>>>> putting your own system together. Maybe go to a few sites with
>>>> pre-configured machines and see what parts they use. Order those,
>>>> screw the thing together yourself, and put a spare of each critical
>>>> part on your shelf.
>>>>
>>> This is what I did for years, but after taking my old parts
collection to the landfill a few times, realized I may as well just buy
N+1 machines and keep zero spares on the shelf. That way I get a spare
machine available for use immediately, and I know the parts are working
(parts on the shelf may be defective). If something breaks, I use the
spare machine until the replacement parts arrive.
>>>
>>> Note in addition that a warranty can be extremely useful in certain
organizations as a vehicle of blame avoidance (this may be its primary
purpose in fact). If I buy a bunch of machines that turn out to have
buggy NICs, well that's my fault and I can kick myself since I own the
company, stay up late into the night reading kernel code, and buy new
NICs. If I have an evil Dilbertian boss, then well...I'd be seriously
thinking about buying Dell boxes in order to blame Dell rather than
myself, and be able to say "everything is warrantied" if badness goes
down. Just saying...
>>>
>>I'm kinda in the latter shoes. Dell is the only thing that is trusted
in my organisation. If I would build my own, I would be fully blamed
for anything going wrong in the next 3 years. Thanks everyone for your
input. Now my final choice will be if my budget allows for the latest
and fastest, else I'm going for the x5690. I don't have hundreds of
users, so I think the x5690 should do a pretty good job handling the
load.
>>
>>
>
> Having plenty experience with Dell I'd urge you reconsider. All the
Dell servers
> we've had have arrived hideously misconfigured, and tech support gets
you
> nowhere. Once we've rejigged the hardware ourselves, maybe replacing
a
> part or two they've performed okay.
>
> Reliability has been okay, however one of our newer R910s recently all
> of a sudden went dead to the world; no prior symptoms showing in our
> hardware and software monitoring, no errors in the os logs, nothing in
> the dell drac logs. After a hard reset it's back up as if nothing
> happened, and it's an issue I'm none the wiser to the cause. Not good
> piece of mind.
>
> Look around and find another vendor, even if your company has to pay
> more for you to have that blame avoidance.

We're currently using Dell and have had enough problems to think about
switching.
What about HP?

Dan Franklin