Those of you businessmen involved with hardware/software

[Harrison]

I need to talk to you guys about wholesale computer hardware/software deals.

Long story short, soon some friends and I will need a lot of hardware and software for a business. We've hunted around online and done some phonecalls and I wanted to talk to some of you guys and compare prices etc.

I know some of you get wholesale parts, and I will end up needing enough to build 12-20 systems. Just out hunting for now, so throw some ideas at me, or tell me how much you would charge etc.

[Narrock]

Best deal... go around to different computer companies and computer tech places and rummage thru their trash bins. Me and a buddy did that at Apple Computer in Cupertino about 22 years ago and got a couple nice monitors in great working condition and some keyboards too. lol Kids.

[Harrison]

...

Ralf, PM me~

[Captain Insano]

Yah I will.

[Tossica]

If you need 20 machines, your best bet is to buy prebuilt machines from a company that offers a service plan. Honestly... before you say "No way, I can build a way better computer than Dell, blah blah blah..." of course you can but consider that the profit margin on computers is quite low and when you are counting man hours for building the machines, loading software etc, it doesn't make sense to build them on your own. 1 or two machines is fine to build but if you get as many as 20, you are going to throw away all your profits building and servicing the machines. Especially if you are planning on building and maintaining a server. Also consider that companies like Dell offer next day, onsite service for their machines which is something I cannot offer my customers in many cases because of workload, having to RMA parts, lack of inventory, etc.

Unless of course you want to work for free.

[Captain Insano]

I'm sorry I totally disagree with you toss.

I pretty much know Dell's inside and out... I know what goes in them, where they have them built, hell I know where their laptops are designed badged and bought.

Dell's and HP computers are complete and total junk. I only sell them because, frankly I have to pay the bills.

If Harri is going to run a biz he is way better off building the machines and maintaining them. If he sticks to a consistent build he can also take advantage of imaging technology for maintanence.

[Tossica]

Like I said, if you only need a couple of PC's then diy is the way to go. If you need a server and as many as 20 machines, buying from someone else is the way to go. It depends on what you are going to do with the pc's as well. The average user isn't going to be able to tell the difference between a custom PC and a dell crap box. Being able to call someone and have them deal with the hardware bullshit within one day is well worth the few extra bucks you might spend on a quality service plan. I've been doing this shit for almost 20 years and believe me, after building hundreds of desktops and servers. in the long run it's just not worth the hassle. I do some contract admin work and when I go onsite somewhere and see a bunch of "custom" PC's or a "server" at a workplace, I just laugh and then send them a big fat bill to fix a bunch of shit that (insert PC manufacturer here) would have probably fixed for free had they coughed up the few extra bucks for a service plan instead of having their cousins, half sisters, mothers, retarded next door neighbor named Harrison put it together.

[Narrock]

Harri got

[Gidan]

The problem with using a company like dell is that by removing 1 single piece of dell hardware and installing something else, you tend to void any service agreement that you have with them. Replacments that couldbe done in minutes with can take weeks because you have to rely on their supply of hardware. We currently have a backup of dell orders for ram that goes back over 5 months. Granted we are not ordering 5G here and 5G there but that doesn't change the fact that we still have orders that should have been filled log ago still waiting.

Even in the range of 20 - 50 servers, building your own will tend to save money and time in the long run. If you use the same hardware in each server, software becomes a joke. You create a single image and just reimage the servers anytime you need to.

[Tossica]

I'm not saying use Dell. I'm saying use a company that makes PC's and servers. We buy 90% of our desktops and servers from a local company called Now Micro. If you are building 20 machines from parts figure at the very least 2 hours per machine to assemble and ghost an image on it. You now have over 40 hours of time in to them. 40 hours of my time is worth a lot more than the few bucks I would have saved making them myself PLUS I have 3 years of free onsite service if any of the hardware should fail.

[Gidan]

2 Hours? We build servers in roughly 15 minutes and our our images take roughly 30 minutes to install. After the first 1 or 2, installs become second nature.

[Tossica]

Bullshit. It takes longer than 15 minutes to unpack the boxes.

If you have a full on tech bench with the ability to build 3-4 machines at a time, your ghost image already made and stored on a network drive somewhere and are using preassembled bare bones systems with exactly the same hardware, I'll buy that you can get them all up and running in less than 40 hours but if you are building machines from scratch, there is no way you are going from boxed parts to configured OS in under an hour per machine. With that many parts you are guaranteed to have some DOA pieces that will need to be dealt with etc.

This is stupid to argue about. If you think you are saving a bunch of money, go for it but you'll likely not be able to do much better pricewise than if you just ordered shit from links on pricewatch.

[Lyion]

The problem with using a company like dell is that by removing 1 single piece of dell hardware and installing something else, you tend to void any service agreement that you have with them. Replacments that couldbe done in minutes with can take weeks because you have to rely on their supply of hardware. We currently have a backup of dell orders for ram that goes back over 5 months. Granted we are not ordering 5G here and 5G there but that doesn't change the fact that we still have orders that should have been filled log ago still waiting.

Even in the range of 20 - 50 servers, building your own will tend to save money and time in the long run. If you use the same hardware in each server, software becomes a joke. You create a single image and just reimage the servers anytime you need to.

First, in a professional environment you don't haphazardly swap out parts. Also, if a part goes bad, Dell generally dispatches someone same/next business day and gets it fixed, if you have a support agreement.

It also matters what level of support you are paying for. Our Dell servers that have went down have been fixed same day. I'm not talking one or two, but thousands. If you are talking about just purchasing components, then you wait on inventory. Thats completely different from support.

Building your own never saves you money, just like not buying with onsite support, or better leasing if its for a business reason makes better sense.

Everything Toss is saying is spot on here. I've worked with small and large companies and in almost all professional environments what he's saying holds true. Time is money in business, and unfortunately not going with leases/onsite support for anything more than a few PCs is a waste of money.

[dammuzis]

only thing that voids the warranty on dell is fuxing with the cpu and mobo

your free to change out almost anything else, just finding somethign that will fit the "patended" green plastic holders

[Donnel]

I completely agree with Toss on this one.

I started out building for this company I'm with. Within three machines and multiple RMA's I decided it wasn't worth my time when I had other projects on hold.

You just don't pay much more for a prebuilt these days. It does, as said, highly depend on what you are using them for however.

[Tikker]

you can order a usable barebones unit with an lcd monitor for under $500 canadian these days


there's no way you can build that cheaper (once you factor in what your time is worth)

unless of course you're attempting to build a hot shit LAN company that hosts gamers

then you're going to be better off building your own

[Donnel]

And getting a real job.

[mofish]

If you need 20 machines, your best bet is to buy prebuilt machines from a company that offers a service plan. Honestly... before you say "No way, I can build a way better computer than Dell, blah blah blah..." of course you can but consider that the profit margin on computers is quite low and when you are counting man hours for building the machines, loading software etc, it doesn't make sense to build them on your own. 1 or two machines is fine to build but if you get as many as 20, you are going to throw away all your profits building and servicing the machines. Especially if you are planning on building and maintaining a server. Also consider that companies like Dell offer next day, onsite service for their machines which is something I cannot offer my customers in many cases because of workload, having to RMA parts, lack of inventory, etc.

Unless of course you want to work for free.

Yeah I agree with this. I love building custom high-end gaming comps and stuff. But Ive had to RMA a few parts. I couldnt imagine the frustration of say, 5 of 20 machines with problems. Ugh.

I always tell people I cant out-cheap Dell, so if they are just looking for a cheap office machine/email box I point them to Dell.