Aye, I do the same thing - I generally keep 2-3 older PC's available as immediate replacement stand-in's negating the need for 4-hour support. The SBS servers are VM's and the image is fully backed up each night and there's another Hyper-V host available to stand the VM up on (in one case it's a desktop, but powerful enough to work in a pinch).
Dave From: John Cook [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:02 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Favorite corporate PCs? Workstations and laptops, about 75 a year. NBD as we always have a loaner or two sitting on the shelf already imaged and ready to drop into place. Servers and Storage - 4 hour. We have a Dell certified tech (sent him to school for a week and it gets us a lot of behind the scenes stuff line schematics and teardown proceedures) so we can direct order parts if we want to and we usually let him do the work, it speeds things up. John W. Cook System Administrator Partnership For Strong Families 5950 NW 1st Place Gainesville, Fl 32607 Office (352) 244-1610 Cell (352) 215-6944 MCSE, MCP+I, MCTS, CompTIA A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 From: Cynicalgeek [mailto:[email protected]]<mailto:[mailto:[email protected]]> Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 3:36 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Favorite corporate PCs? How many workstations do you refresh per year? 1/3 of the workstations/laptops? How many is that? Are you paying for 4 hour support or NBD support for workstations and laptops? On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 3:21 PM, John Cook <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I've had both refurb and NIB parts shipped but really, if they are still under warranty who cares. it may be cheaper up front but when you figure in downtime (and all of my Dell parts are either there that day or first thing the next AM) for dozens or even hundreds of staff for hours or days not to mention the 24/7 support then suddenly it isn't quite the savings you thought. It's a business case, do you need cheap equipment to get you up and running or do you need to minimize the impact on your overworked staff. Can I build a whitebox cheaper, sure, I do it at home but when it comes to doing hundreds of machines during a refresh it just doesn't pay. Labor in Mexico is WAY cheaper than my time. John W. Cook System Administrator Partnership For Strong Families 5950 NW 1st Place Gainesville, Fl 32607 Office (352) 244-1610<tel:%28352%29%20244-1610> Cell (352) 215-6944<tel:%28352%29%20215-6944> MCSE, MCP+I, MCTS, CompTIA A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 From: Cynicalgeek [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 2:55 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Favorite corporate PCs? I've been on both sides of this over the past 17 years and have heard all of the question answer sessions before. Go with a local business who has a good reputation and uses either true Intel boards or ASUS boards. Is Dell's tech support/replacement part solution that wonderful that justifies the overpriced computer? Have you *EVER* gotten a replacement part from Dell that wasn't s refurb? I had servers on Gold or Platinum support and when a RAID array drive is sent out for replacement it is a refurb. Does that seem fair to you? On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 1:59 PM, John Cook <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Local business go out of business at inopportune times and there is much more to the vendor relationship with Dell than just buying a box. John W. Cook Systems Administrator Partnership for Strong Families From: Cynicalgeek [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 01:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: Favorite corporate PCs? Why not support a local business instead of buying overpriced Dell computers? On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 12:24 PM, Tom Miller <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: We purchase a number of PCs each month as part of a rotation cycle. I've been a Dell customer for years, but lately don't think Dell has been offering the best price we can get (we are non-profit and state/GSA, although non-profit pricing is usually better). So I'm looking around. 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