From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 26 19:20:25 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C374416A400 for ; Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:20:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pauls@utdallas.edu) Received: from smtp2.utdallas.edu (smtp2.utdallas.edu [129.110.10.33]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2FC713C48C for ; Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:20:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pauls@utdallas.edu) Received: from utd59514.utdallas.edu (utd59514.utdallas.edu [129.110.3.28]) by smtp2.utdallas.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 259A55C2D6; Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:20:25 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:15:58 -0600 From: Paul Schmehl To: chris neill , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <513A87DF5FD44FA668A656F7@utd59514.utdallas.edu> In-Reply-To: <20070126153506.GA78392@dan.emsphone.com> References: <226ae0c60701260641x1419b19ck6a073c637d452423@mail.gmail.com> <20070126145301.GA15871@revolt.com> <20070126153506.GA78392@dan.emsphone.com> X-Mailer: Mulberry/4.0.6 (Linux/x86) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=sha1; protocol="application/pkcs7-signature"; boundary="==========578FF8DAB588AE3BCAC4==========" X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: Subject: Re: [Opinions Wanted] Dell PowerEdge 2950 Servers ... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:20:25 -0000 --==========578FF8DAB588AE3BCAC4========== Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline --On Friday, January 26, 2007 09:35:06 -0600 Dan Nelson=20 wrote: > In the last episode (Jan 26), chris neill said: >> On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 09:41:19AM -0500, David Robillard wrote: >> > IMHO, the problem with Dell is not their hardware, but their >> > support (or lack of it). >> >> Ditto -- We had a (duh) PERC 3/di go south on a PE2550 and getting >> Dell to fix it was like pulling teeth. Once I finally leaned on them >> enough to get them to agree to an RMA, I had to wait until the next >> day for the part to be courried to my datacenter (which was a slight >> gaff, since they don't usually do S&R), and another couple of hours >> for the guy to show up. > > Maybe it depends on you you end up talking to. We recently had a PERC > 4e/Di go bad in one of our PE2800s. Dell sent us a new motherboard > same day and we replaced it ourselves in 2 hours (took so long only > because we had never done it before). It did ship with an out-of-date > BIOS, though, so it took a while to flash everything up. It surely must. We have hundreds of Dell servers of every size, shape and=20 description and have never had any trouble at all with support. We call,=20 them the part that's bad, and they express it to us right then. We've even = had parts "hand-delivered" from Austin by our rep. I think the key is to=20 bypass 1st tier, which you can easily do by asking your rep for the 2nd=20 tier #. We've found the Dell's to be extremely reliable (we just retired=20 a six-year-old server because we were concerned that the drives might start = failing), and we often sign up for additional support after the initial=20 three-year warranty period has expired. I personally maintain a Dell (PowerEdge 500!) that is about five or six=20 years old (don't recall exactly), and the only failure I've had a single=20 drive. (I took the opportunity to upgrade to 5.4 at the time.) Paul Schmehl (pauls@utdallas.edu) Senior Information Security Analyst The University of Texas at Dallas http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/ --==========578FF8DAB588AE3BCAC4==========--