[OmniOS-discuss] Dell vs. Supermicro and any recommendations..

[Andrew Gabriel]

In customers I've dealt with, if there isn't a binding data center 
policy in place for one or the other, it's usually a trade-off between 
TCO, and the differing field service offerings with respect to mean time 
to repair (which can be very location-specific). This can also be 
influenced by the ability of your own data center staff to 
diagnose/repair hardware faults and your own spares holding, and of 
course the availability requirements of your systems.

Andy wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have a number of Dell PE1950 servers running OmniOS which are in need
> of replacement. Management here have always used Dell and have suggested
> the R730xd platform (as we want more disk slots in the new servers).
>
> I've read some useful posts on this mailing list about the Dell R730xd -
> specifically that if we ask Dell to configure it for Nexenta then it will
> come with an LSI HBA and Intel NICs but I haven't seen any further posts
> saying whether anyone has had any success getting one of these up and
> running. I got the impression from the posts that it wasn't a great idea
> and Supermicro is a better option.
>
> I'd prefer to run Supermicro but might have some problems convincing
> those with the purse strings. Is anyone running, or can anyone recommend,
> a Supermicro server roughly equivalent to the Del R730xd, or give me an
> idea of what chipsets/HBAs etc. to choose or avoid for OmniOS?
>
> Any help appreciated,
>
> Thanks
>
> Andy
>
>