Quoting Craig Sanders ([email protected]): > big name brand servers (intel, dell, hp, etc) often make it difficult by > using proprietary parts and, worse, proprietary connectors and cables. > and non-standard sizes. all sorts of crappy little tricks to make it > difficult to swap in third-party parts.
Yes, this annoyance goes _way_ back. Even back in XT clone days, we hobbyists noticed that generic Taiwanese clone gear was greatly more standardised, and easier / more inexpensive to work on, than any of the brand-name gear. Typically much more IBM-compatible, too (which then mattered). > 2nd tier brands like supermicro, you can pretty much use standard > third-party fans (noctua make some excellent quiet fans, e.g. 120mm fans > blowing 60, 70 CFM or more at under 18db or so). i suppose they have to, > their stuff would be too expensive if they couldn't source commodity > parts, while the big names obviously think the lock-in is worth charging > their customers more for (partly because their customers don't care too > much about price, they're covering their arses by buying big-name brands > that their bosses recognise). Indeed. Only the major manufacturers _can_ standardise on bespoke parts, because any smaller company would get destroyed by parts churn from their suppliers. That is, for example, my old firm VA Linux Systems were[1] obliged to pick components very carefully to attempt to ensure a supply pipeline over the product production life of the models the parts were spec'd for. If a key upstream part suddenly were EOLed, that would be a huge problem unless our engineers were able to quickly find a highly compatible replacement from that or a different supplier. The firm in some cases bought up huge stockpiles of a particular component against future use on the assembly line, such as one particular PSU custom-manufactured for the firm by Converter Concepts. Before I departed employment at VA Linux Systems, I made sure to scrounge half a dozen of those as spares, because I heard they were selling at premium prices, used, on eBay. Meanwhile, my employer made the mistake of oversupplying, and ultimately took a big loss on excess inventory. (I still have my hoard, but doubt they're still a supplier's delight in the market. Such is life.) But in other cases, the firm guessed well: The firm chose Quantum's Atlas V SCSI 18GB and 73GB hard drives as their standard drive for various 2U and 1U rackmount servers, estimating correctly that Quantum would keep that product alive a very long time, and VA did _not_ lay in a big stockpile. This proved a much smarter gamble than the PSU one. FWIW, each drive's option ROM was reflashed to a particular firmware revision that tested best for use with RAID on Linux (either md software RAID or Mylex hardware-RAID cards). Apparently, option firmware version made a difference. Some of the parts and assembly problems were legendary. I'll have to tell LUV the one about the pencil marks on the RAM sticks, soon. > > With the aftermarket fan, it's ultra-cool and almost completely > > silent, and some day I hope to make it a 'stealth' modern > > workstation with a 2010s > > why 2010 when 2015/2016 stuff is so much better, cooler, less power, > and faster? I feel bad following up to say this, but what I said and meant was '2010s', i.e. this decade, not 2010 the year. [1] Once again, I thank LUV for the chance to speak the Queen's English. ;-> Locally, I am obliged to say 'VA Linux Systems was', or would be thought either eccentric, confused, or both: Americans and Canadians construe business enterprises _mostly_ in the singular, but also intermittently throw in pronouns 'they' and 'we' at unpredictable intervals. _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list [email protected] http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
