[AccessD] OT: Shopping for a new comp

I concur with John too!  ;)

I know that for folks who have never built a machine it is scary but once you get over that (unless 
something goes wrong... it is trivial to build) the ability to upgrade and the future lack of fear 
makes it well worth doing.

I routinely upgrade my existing systems.  Dual core to quad, to hex, 2 gigs to 4 to 8, 320g hd to 
tbyte etc.  It costs waaaaaay less that buying a whole new machine and you can continually have fast 
systems instead of systems that are always old / slow (after the first year you have them).

I built a dual socket server with 16 dim slots.

I populated one side with the old opteron 8 core and 32 gigs of ram.  The mb/proc/memory was around 
$1700.  I am (im)patiently waiting for the bulldozer chip to arrive and drop in price, but when it 
does I can drop in one or two of those chips and bump my server from 8 cores to as many as 32, with 
faster processors to boot and update my memory up to 128 gigs as well.

I can't even tell you how much I saved by not going the dell/hp route, but it would be at *least* 
3-4 times as much and 4-5 times as much for future upgrades.

And... I used my old server hardware to build a Virtual Machine server.  I got a 16GB quad core VM 
for *free* because I reused my old SQL Server hardware for that after the upgrade.

BTW I am using SSDs both for boot drives as well as for storing database files for SQL Server and 
they are awesome (if expensive).

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

On 6/13/2011 12:22 PM, Drew Wutka wrote:
> I concur with John here.  From a business standpoint, if you are
> supporting a large network, you can't afford to build each machine.  But
> in a single or only a few environment, you will get better prices with
> building your own machine, then a single purchase from a manufacturer
> like Dell.
>
> The machine I built in January, that I posted about on OT, cost me about
> a grand, and similar hardware, actually.... lower level hardware (my
> machine has more ram and bigger hard drives), cost about 1,600 from
> Dell.
>
> Originally, the machine I built only cost $650.  That was the case, the
> motherboard, an i5 Quad Core, 8 gigs of RAM, video card, and two 500 gig
> hard drives.  I already had a 500 watt power supply, only component I
> didn't originally buy.  A few days later I bought three terabyte drives,
> 8 gigs more of RAM (maxing out that motherboard).  That was almost $300.
> And more recently I popped another terabyte drive in (making my 'data'
> drive a RAID 10, vs a RAID 5), bought a new 850 Watt power supply, and a
> nice UPS (put the total closer to 1300, the ups was almost 200).
>
> There has already been suggestions to use a SSD OS drive, I personally
> have not done that.  The mirrored drives for the OS are pretty fast.
> While SSD drive are definitely faster than their mechanical
> counterparts, they are still limited by the bus they operate on.  Plus,
> SSD drives do have longevity issues, and are not recommended for RAID's.
> I always prefer RAIDS for safety reasons.... ;)
>
> Drew
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
> Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 12:12 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Shopping for a new comp
>
> I would advise building your own.  You may or may not save money but you
> learn what is required to
> do so (it is easy) and you are no longer afraid of digging in and
> upgrading.  I have not purchased a
> desktop since 1988.  I build my own and upgrade them to keep them fast
> enough.
>
> I recommend AMD because the motherboards tend to be usable for many
> years with just a processor
> upgrade.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.667
> 457
>
>
> Intel processors are fine but there are just too many different
> processor sockets etc.  Upgrading to
> a faster processor may or may not even be possible.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.661
> 393
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Store/MasterComboStore.aspx?StoreID=7&name=DIY-PC-
> Combos
>
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com