Message-ID: <5065DF86.2030909@turnkey.bz>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:33:58 -0600
From: "M. D." <lists@turnkey.bz>
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To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: hardware advice
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On 09/28/2012 09:57 AM, David Boreham wrote:
> On 9/28/2012 9:46 AM, Craig James wrote:
>> Your best warranty would be to have the confidence to do your own
>> repairs, and to have the parts on hand.  I'd seriously consider
>> putting your own system together.  Maybe go to a few sites with
>> pre-configured machines and see what parts they use.  Order those,
>> screw the thing together yourself, and put a spare of each critical
>> part on your shelf.
>>
> This is what I did for years, but after taking my old parts collection 
> to the landfill a few times, realized I may as well just buy N+1 
> machines and keep zero spares on the shelf. That way I get a spare 
> machine available for use immediately, and I know the parts are 
> working (parts on the shelf may be defective). If something breaks, I 
> use the spare machine until the replacement parts arrive.
>
> Note in addition that a warranty can be extremely useful in certain 
> organizations as a vehicle of blame avoidance (this may be its primary 
> purpose in fact). If I buy a bunch of machines that turn out to have 
> buggy NICs, well that's my fault and I can kick myself since I own the 
> company, stay up late into the night reading kernel code, and buy new 
> NICs. If I have an evil Dilbertian boss, then well...I'd be seriously 
> thinking about buying Dell boxes in order to blame Dell rather than 
> myself, and be able to say "everything is warrantied" if badness goes 
> down. Just saying...
>
I'm kinda in the latter shoes.  Dell is the only thing that is trusted 
in my organisation.  If I would build my own, I would be fully blamed 
for anything going wrong in the next 3 years. Thanks everyone for your 
input.  Now my final choice will be if my budget allows for the latest 
and fastest, else I'm going for the x5690.  I don't have hundreds of 
users, so I think the x5690 should do a pretty good job handling the load.