For whatever it's worth, I've been buying SM servers for the last couple years. I had a motherboard failure and they had a replacement to me next morning. I didn't have to ship anything except the defective board once I replaced it. Mark
On Saturday, October 19, 2013, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > On Sat, 19 Oct 2013, Edward Ned Harvey (openindiana) wrote: > > I'm planning to build a ZFS storage server in the datacenter. Mission >> critical storage for virtualization, requiring hardware support, 24/7, 4hr, >> sameday onsite. >> >> I thought I was going with silicon mechanics, and just learned, that >> their 24/7 4hr sameday service is pointless - because they don't get parts >> to you. You have to buy spare parts including memory and whatever else, >> but if something like a motherboard or CPU dies, you still have to ship it >> back to the depot. >> >> My next thought is, obviously I can get some good hardware with good >> support from oracle. But I'd like to know what other alternatives there >> are. >> >> Recommendations? >> > > Using a whole hot-standby system (or at least a well-tested and burned in > standby system) may be best. If you purchase from the right vendor you can > likely get a reasonable price since the big-brand vendor likely charges 2X > or 3X the amount for the same thing. > > Spare parts is likely second best, although they may charge more for the > spare parts than a whole system. The problem with spare parts is that they > may not work and the warranty expires while the parts are in your care. > > A support contract from Oracle may be reasonable but sometimes system > hardware does not fail cleanly and they may waste considerable time trying > to remotely diagnose the problem while your system is misbehaving. > > Bob > -- > Bob Friesenhahn > bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/** > users/bfriesen/ <http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/> > GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ > > ______________________________**_________________ > OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list > OpenIndiana-discuss@openindiana.org > http://openindiana.org/**mailman/listinfo/openindiana-**discuss<http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss> > -- Mark _______________________________________________ OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list OpenIndiana-discuss@openindiana.org http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss