Re: Opinions Wanted: Dell PowerEdge Servers ... ?

Mike Galvez wrote:

No small thing you need to consider when choosing Dell is that they DO NOT support
FreeBSD. They support Windows and Red Hat Linux. If the machine is not lights-out
and the OS is not one of the above, they will not send parts or a technician.

I found this out the hard way and had to load Linux on a spare drive just to prove
a piece of hardware was failing. They wasted a lot of my time. The cheaper cost of
their hardware was easily outweighed by the wasted hours of my time.


Disclaimer: fingers crossed we have yet to have a hardware problem or need Dell's support. Also, my experience of their "technical support" as a private purchaser of a laptop, was absolutely lousy. My only consolation was that their being so atrocious cost them more money than they could possibly have made on the laptop. I have been told that they are better for business class customers but have no proof.

The 2850 servers we purchased came with Dell diagnostics on slice 1 - running Windows 95 I think! It would seem especially prudent when running a non-supported OS in any production environment to keep those diagnostics intact. BSD will happily install on slices 2-4 and auto boot from whichever you last booted from, so the diags can stay invisible until you need them.

--Alex


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