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Brand name vs no name hardware
There are providers like Worldstream and Leaseweb that use servers from big brands like Fujitsu, Dell and HPE. Then there are providers like OVH or Hetzner that seem to use self built servers and sometimes also desktop hardware.
Do you think that using brand name or "real server hardware" is important? Using no name hardware like some providers do seems a bit sketchy in my opinion, but does it make sense or have I just fallen for marketing?
Comments
As long as everything goes well, why not use custom servers?
OVH and Hetzner most likely use this for simpler management
Regards ,
Calin
Consider warranty.
It matters when shit hits the fan.
Server-grade motherboard (supermicro/dell/hp etc) matters more than the whole machine being brand name. The warranty and support of a big server brand means nothing to the customer renting a server, but the stability (i.e. lack of unexplained freezes/crashes) of a server-grade board does
I know that you can get extensive warranties and stuff like on-site repair services for brand name servers. That may or may not matter for the provider, Hetzner and OVH can surely do the repairs themselves. I was thinking more from the perspective of renting servers.
Yeah, it might be that it doesn't really matter as long as the hardware is server-grade and the provider takes care of the maintenance. But are Hetzner and OVH servers actual server hardware? I would assume that at least the cheap ones that may have something like an intel core i7 aren't.
It matters more to the big names actually because they can customize warranty terms.
Ex: One hour rapid response or we fix it ASAP and you handle it later.
To small rats, it doesn't really matter, which is why you see desktop-grade hardware being utilized by bottom barrel hosts.
The only difference between desktop and server hardware, in my experience, is minimal. ECC is officially supported by server grade shit, and that's about it.
Oh, and motherboard RAM slots on server mobo is optimized for air flow for rackmounts as well as IPMI, serial ports, and that jazz.
Makes sense. In the end it's just standard pc hardware, even if it has some special features.
I have also heard it said that the difference in reliability between an average desktop pc and the cheaper Dell or HP models like the poweredge r240 and proliant dl20 isn't that big. With the more high end models there might be a more significant difference.
Some of OVHs server run better (or only) on OVHs self-optimized kernel, so I've to rely on them.
When you go with the big brands you can get the same experience, same configuration (hardware as well as system configuration) in multiple Datacenter while with Hetzner or OVH, I'm required to do additional work or be limited to them.
Just image you buy 10 servers equally configured by one of the big brands you mentioned. You can have them send each server to another DC across the world and once they're installed in the rack, it's more or less like managing one server and replicate this to the other. When you get an E5 with OVH and a Ryzen with Hetzner, this can be more work to manage.
I am a believer that reliability goes up when there are less points of failures, meaning a cheap, simple no-frills, motherboard is better than sophisticated, high-end, RGB-ridden motherboard.
The less shit on PCB, the better.
Hetzner do order custom built motherboards for there services.
Link: Over 200,000 Servers in One Place! Visiting Hetzner in Falkenstein (Germany)
Thread: Visiting Hetzner in Falkenstein (Germany)
I've heard that Google uses private label, or white label hardware for their servers. Lol
Well, Google operates on an entirely different scale. I've heard that they can replace entire racks at a time without disrupting their services. If that's true, then it probably doesn't really matter how reliable the hardware is.