[Wolves] OT - Servers

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 10:36:56PM +0000, Stephen Welch wrote:
> On 30 November 2011 14:38, Adam Sweet <adam at adamsweet.org> wrote:
> > I've also used Supermicro servers from:
> >
> > http://www.rackservers.com/
> 
> Well customer support is interesting.  I had an instance of being
> referred to the as the stupid twat in a forwarded email response after
> a first time call and question re a RAID driver.  Will never use them
> again.

I've also had poor customer service from rackservers.com.

I had a few instances of them failing to assemble servers properly -
RAM placed in configurations not supported by motherboard, which by
pure luck did boot but a look at BIOS error logs would have shown
the problem.  This continued even after me explaining what they did
wrong, but I put up with it given that I have to check the hardware
configuration anyway.

They once shipped me a server with completely different hard drives
in it than I had specified, without any mention that this was going
to happen. I'd specified low power hard drives for a reason, so it
wasn't something I could overlook. This took weeks to resolve.

Finally they gave me a really hard time[1] on what should have been a
routine motherboard replacement on a server that had next business
day on-site support cover paid for. After several weeks of back and
forth I just bought a replacement motherboard elsewhere.

That was the final straw and as a result I no longer use them.

I currently use www.boston.co.uk. They have an awful web site and no
configurator so it's a case of working out which part numbers you
need, but have otherwise been good to work with. They are slightly
more expensive than rackservers.com but to be honest I've spent a
lot more in terms of my time being lost.

I must admit I have not yet had cause to test Boston with
replacement of faulty parts.

Cheers,
Andy

[1] You know the drill; "have you tried replacing the RAM?" "have
    you flashed the BIOS to the latest version?" "your problem is
    you bought matching RAM from somewhere else - you need to buy
    matching RAM from us!" etc etc.

    Running machines don't suddenly require a BIOS upgrade to carry
    on running. Endless shuffling of RAM is not fun on production
    hardware. If I suspect a motherboard fault and have hardware
    cover then I expect an advance replacement in the agreed time so
    that I can test my suspicions. I'll eat all the humble pie in
    the world and happily pay the delivery charges if I end up being
    wrong.

-- 
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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