ie8 fix

ZDNet Education

Christopher Dawson
Home / News & Blogs / ZDNet Education

Should I just build my own systems?

By | January 27, 2010, 12:36pm PST

Last week I built myself a web server from parts. It’s nothing fancy (anyone remember the Pentium 4?), but it was completely free and is quite happily hosting my new website. It sits in my basement running Ubuntu Server 9.10 and, because I’m pretty softcore, even has a snappy GUI (I’m partial to Gnome these days). My point? Although this particular machine was cobbled together, highly functional systems don’t have to cost very much and don’t need to come from OEMs.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote a great post yesterday on building a $550 barebones gaming system. Replace his fancy graphics card with more RAM and you have yourself a pretty slick server capable of virtualizing web and application servers, desktop environments, running FreeNX or Terminal Services quite well. Components have become so cheap that it would be easy to add RAID and some appropriate redundancy.

On the other side of the coin, building desktops with even a quarter of the power Adrian described gets mighty cheap. TigerDirect sells direct to governments and educational institutions and offers components that are almost ridiculously cheap. For schools using open source operating systems (or who already have valid Windows licenses, CALs, etc.), this can be even cheaper since you aren’t paying OEM markups for Windows.

But are you saving enough to give up support, warranties, and the time it takes to build these systems? After all, a really basic HP desktop for government purchasers starts at $349. Of course, that’s a stripper with half a gig of RAM and a single-core Sempron. I bet I could do better on TigerDirect for $349 (oh wait, I just did).

What do you really get for support anyway? Most often, you get a lengthy scripted phone call with a level 1 tech who knows far less than you do. If you pay for “premium tech support” then you’re going to pay through the nose. The only premium support I’ve ever been able to justify is Apple’s support on our XServes: they go beyond support and well into the realms of serious training.

Besides, using cheap commodity components, these systems are easily rebuilt and replaced in-house for very little money. We all have students, interns, parents, and teachers who will contribute to support efforts and who will probably be more effective than that first tech to whom we speak in Bangalore. Hard drive dies? Who cares? Don’t bother with a tech support call, shipping, and hassles. The drive was $25. Just replace it.

As both the prices of equipment and the quality (in general) of tech support decrease, I’m struggling to justify spending even a moderate premium to get a warranty and 1-3 years of support from an OEM. I’m not suggesting that mission-critical servers should be pieced together from a TigerDirect kit (although you can actually build a monster server for cheap there). However, the hardware isn’t usually where you need support on these machines. It isn’t rocket science to replace a power supply or a bad drive in a RAID array. The support on mission-critical servers is usually needed on the applications they run; the applications don’t know Dell from HP from Biostar.

I’m not completely convinced yet myself that rolling your own is the way to go. However, as I price out hardware from now on, I’ll be comparing to the costs of kits on Tiger and NewEgg.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “ZDNet Education”

Topics

Tech, OEM, TigerDirect, RAID, Servers, Storage, Hardware, Christopher Dawson

Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.

Disclosure

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.). He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change. He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have). Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others. Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair. Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards. Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap. Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff. Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable. Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.

Biography

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider. He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.

Related Discussions on TechRepublic

Did you know you can take part in these discussions with your ZDNet membership?
Ask a Question Start a Discussion
32
Comments
Add Your Opinion

Join the conversation!

Just In

upgrade an old computer vs buying a new one
computergranny 15th Mar 2010
Didn't know where else to ask this question. I have a Dell Dim. 4600 bought 1/04, 2.66GHz, 515MB ram. Running very slow. Audacity one of the culprits. Use dialup. Deadly slow. In these recycle-reuse and hard economic times, does it make sense (and is it possible) to upgarde this computer and internet service with satifactory results? I mostly use it for email, some desktop publishing and sound effects production for theater.
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
Christopher, YES, build your own, but, think multi-headed for most
DonnieBoy 27th Jan 2010
applications as you save a fortune in electricity.
Thus, each CPU supports 8 monitors, keyboards and
mice. Well, OK, the 8 heads on one of these
configurations can be just, well, . . .
terminals. So, this is also a cheap way to do
terminals.
0 Votes
+ -
multi-head: yes, with limits
ArtInvent 27th Jan 2010
I'm writing this now on a network connected client to a run of the mill Ubuntu box, using NX. It logs in in seconds. It's brilliant. I can definitely see outfitting a classroom or office with a multiheaded system using just the USB graphics and keyboard mouse hookups now offered. With the server costing maybe $600. Talk about admin, electricity, and hardware savings.

Sound to each user is a bit of problem, last time I checked. But within that limitation - pretty amazing.
0 Votes
+ -
@ArtInvent
Axsimulate 27th Jan 2010
Yeah, that's fine and dandy how slick it works, but how about running Educational software? What major software company writes native educational software for Linux?
0 Votes
+ -
You could run Windows only educational software in a terminal.
DonnieBoy 27th Jan 2010
But, then again, if the company is so stupid as to
only make it for Windows . . . .

Also, a lot of it is moving to the web.
0 Votes
+ -
@DonnieBoy
Axsimulate Updated - 28th Jan 2010
Right, and you're going to put a Kindergartner in front of the terminal window. That should work well, NOT!
0 Votes
+ -
upgrade an old computer vs buying a new one
computergranny 15th Mar 2010
Didn't know where else to ask this question. I have a Dell Dim. 4600 bought 1/04, 2.66GHz, 515MB ram. Running very slow. Audacity one of the culprits. Use dialup. Deadly slow. In these recycle-reuse and hard economic times, does it make sense (and is it possible) to upgarde this computer and internet service with satifactory results? I mostly use it for email, some desktop publishing and sound effects production for theater.
0 Votes
+ -
Some people can, some can't
Axsimulate 27th Jan 2010
I ran into somebody that tried to build their own system and failed miserably! One of the things he complained about was that the mobo was defective because the SATA controller was bad. After the third mobo he still complained the SATA controller was bad. I looked at it and found the SATA controller was fine, come to find out he was trying to access the HD but never formatted it so he assumed the SATA controller was bad. Duh!

Believe me, build you own is not for everybody, no matter how easy we think it is, it might as well be brain surgery to someone else.
0 Votes
+ -
Yes for the love of money yes!
User 13 27th Jan 2010
You save so much money and get much much better quality components that you will never miss not having that warranty. I work for a very large government body and I call Dell almost everyday, bad HDD, Bad power supply, bad ram, bad motherboard, in order of most common failures. If you add up the productivity lost and the time desktop support spends troubleshooting, the money saving benefits of buying the cheapest PC's in creation quickly evaporate. Throw in security and paperwork requirements and a failed component results in at least three days of downtime before that users machine is back up. Even though it may cost me in job security I wish to god I could have been there when they were deciding which systems to buy.
0 Votes
+ -
@User 13
Axsimulate 27th Jan 2010
That's funny. I usually call Dell and they send somebody out to fix it for free. If a employees computers HD fails, you should have another computer on hand ready to go and as a loaner until theirs is fixed. The longest it ever took for Dell to have somebody come out and fix a computer in my experience was 3 days. Which was no big deal because we set a loaner for them.

In my experience, companies usually lease computers for 3 years. Why?
1. Little to no money out of pocket up front for new computers, just monthly payments.
2. Monthly payments can be charged as business expense for tax purposes.
3. New computers under warranty for 3 years.
4. No money out of pocket to repair when they break.
5. Option to buy after lease expires.
6. Can renew/refresh systems after 3 years to keep up with technology with another lease.
0 Votes
+ -
Your forgetting "Security"
User 13 27th Jan 2010
Dell technicians would not be allowed onsite, nor would they ever be allowed to work on our workstations. We also cannot have a "Hot Spare" workstation as the network is configured to only allow one computer to access one network port, connect another computer and the port locks up requiring an offsite security group to unlock. We also are not allocated a budget for replacement stock so our only source of parts is warranty replacements. The government is very efficient.
0 Votes
+ -
@User 13
Axsimulate Updated - 27th Jan 2010
In the case of certain parts (i.e. a HD) Dell will ask you if you want a tech to install it or just send the part for you to replace it. And it's still free.
0 Votes
+ -
Free parts, expensive time.
User 13 27th Jan 2010
All of our parts are free, but I think that by buying higher quality components we could avoid all the downtime. The quality of components used in these Dell's, Sometimes I think they just die of shame.
0 Votes
+ -
@User 13
Axsimulate Updated - 27th Jan 2010
"Sometimes I think they just die of shame."

That's funny!

Your mileage may vary, but I've had good luck with Dell's business computers, consumer side, well, not so much.
0 Votes
+ -
Do you go out of your way to find poorly configured systems?
ye 27th Jan 2010
Microcenter is selling the following for $359:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317878

A much better configuration and it includes a free upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.
0 Votes
+ -
@ye
Axsimulate 27th Jan 2010
Wow, that's overpriced. I just built a system pretty much the same specs except with a 2.8 Ghz Core2Duo E7400 with a 1066 FSB for $350.00. New parts, not refurbished. and the Core2Duo E7400 will run circles around the E2220.
0 Votes
+ -
But did that price include a Windows licence ?
Zogg 27th Jan 2010
There's an elephant in this room, and "OS pricing" is its name...
0 Votes
+ -
@Zogg
Axsimulate 27th Jan 2010
Good point, no it didn't, I already have a copy of Windows to put on it. Although I may put Ubuntu and maybe OS X on it as well.
0 Votes
+ -
Sounds good to me.
Zogg 27th Jan 2010
I'd hate for you to have bought another licence unnecessarily happy.
0 Votes
+ -
@Zogg
Axsimulate 27th Jan 2010
Yeah, me too! Windows 7 pro would double my cost!
0 Votes
+ -
Irrelevant.
ye Updated - 27th Jan 2010
The fact you built a better spec'd system for less doesn't change my point that Christopher is terrible at finding good deals. To the contrary it supports my point.
0 Votes
+ -
But your entire "point" is irrelevant.
Zogg Updated - 28th Jan 2010
Since Chris apparently built his server out of spare parts he already had lying around, you can only be objecting to this bit:

"After all, a really basic HP desktop for government purchasers starts at $349. Of course, that's a stripper with half a gig of RAM and a single-core Sempron. I bet I could do better on TigerDirect for $349 (oh wait, I just did)."

In which case, it doesn't matter how much better a deal you can find than the one that Chris found on TigerDirect, because his original point was how poor value the "basic HP desktop for government purchasers" is. A point that you have now reinforced, BTW.
0 Votes
+ -
That's exactly what I'm "objecting" to.
ye 28th Jan 2010
In which case, it doesn't matter how much better a deal you can find than the one that Chris found on TigerDirect, because his original point was how poor value the "basic HP desktop for government purchasers" is. A point that you have now reinforced, BTW.

If you want to ignore the surrounding points then I can see how you'd reach that conclusion. For those of us who are paying attention to the context that's not the message.
0 Votes
+ -
Gaming
LadyGray 27th Jan 2010
Game computers need to be cutting-edge. However, I look for Intel or AMD bringing out the next-generation of processors and motherboards, and then buy four of the best of the previous-generation processors and motherboards, plus excessive amounts of RAM. By doing this, I save substantially over what they cost when they were brand-new items on the market, and usually also get the final version (which means fewer hardware bugs).

So, as my husband and I dual-box WoW, we generally don't have the lag problems that others have. The extra memory and fast processors have no trouble keeping up, even in Dalaran.
0 Votes
+ -
So how much did your new webserver cost in the end?
Zogg 27th Jan 2010
"Last week I built myself a web server from parts."

Are these old, used parts that you happened to have lying around?

"(anyone remember the Pentium 4?)"

Heh, I'm running a dual P4 here right now. But it's being replaced real soon wink.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Should I just build my own systems?
ArtInvent 27th Jan 2010
I've built my own Ubuntu desktop. 2 years after that, I just bought an HP quad core on special for about $650, couldn't beat the price. I go back and forth on which is better and cheaper. It's pretty easy to find a discount from the major PC co's that is pretty much equal to what you can assemble from parts. I saw a brief deal the other day for a pretty good quad core system for $350. I mean, how do you beat that? They just get much better prices in volume on their components.

Of course, if you require very very particular components, it's probably better to just build your own. On the Ubuntu box I have since replaced with a custom silent PSU; custom CPU cooler; more RAM; upgraded HDD's twice; added a graphics card and later replaced that with a fanless silent graphics card; and a few other quirky customizations. Of course you can do that too with an off the shelf PC - but it does help when you've actually assembled it all in the first place. You become a much better self-tech and know your machines inside and out.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Should I just build my own systems?
ajole 27th Jan 2010
Recently, prices on systems are so low that buying parts + labor to assemble is more cost than just buying the cheap systems. And as one of those teachers that would be "volunteering" his time to help fix the mess later...you might want to ask first?

However...a REALLY cheap system, with an upgrade in RAM and/or video, is often very effective.

And for goodness sakes...dump the installed mess they all provide, and load your own imaged OS, whatever you choose.
But we know you know that!
0 Votes
+ -
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
D.T.Schmitz 27th Jan 2010
You do what you can with the resources available.

Being creative about how you spend money or avoid spending money is key to repurposing older equipment that runs quite well on Linux.

No need to upgrade your hardware if you use Linux. Downgrade is even in the cards.
0 Votes
+ -
My $3200 Dual Quad-core Xeon server...
Scratchi 27th Jan 2010
Here is a 1U server I put together recently that is way cheaper then Dell, HP and puts them to shame really...try to price these specs out from an OEM, let me know if you can do better. I'm colocating this, so the 1U size is important since my rates are per U and I need lots of horsepower

1U Chenbro Chassis RM13204-RT650 (comes with reduntant power supply and 5 fans)
2 Xeon E5520s with fanless heatsinks on an Asus Z8NR-D12 server mobo
12 GB of DDR3-1066 ECC-REG memory(6x2GB crucial)
4 WD 7200rpm black series sata drives in raid 1+0(SAS is out of my budget, i need the space)

I should also mention that this motherboard has 2 onboard nics and a management port that allows you to connect to a webbased management console that has built in KVM over web for remote console access, similar to dells DRAC enterprise. Closest equivalent from dell is the R610 which is much pricier.

I have 5 VMs running currently on this box and more to come...I use KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) for virtualization

I don't agree with a lot of things Chris writes about, but this article speaks truth happy
0 Votes
+ -
CAD btw
Scratchi 27th Jan 2010
And that's $3200 CAD btw...just thought i'd mention it
0 Votes
+ -
In your basement is the right place for that pile of crap.
cornpie Updated - 27th Jan 2010
Look, any of us who have been in the business for a while could build a system out of parts from our bin. But that's not the real question.

What do you do when things go wrong? Do you have a COOP plan? I bet you don't or if you do then anything mission critical wont be on that cobbled together system. Any thing that really has to work or it's your a$$ then it's going to be supported and backed up and recoverable.

Sure, if you are Google you can afford to build your own systems, but you aren't. In your situation you would be crazy to rely on that system for anything important (and if its not important then why have it?).
0 Votes
+ -
what about scale?
jfinnis20 29th Jan 2010
Am I missing something? When we buy computers (school in upstate NY) we buy them 100+ at a time. Just unboxing, inventory, plugging in and physical setup takes 3 people 2 days. I can't imagine the time required to build from scratch that many computers.
It seems like you would also have issues with image compatibility, since as a single buyer you wouldn't be able to force chipset consistency etc.
At our school we end up spending $$ on equipment for students not the army of techs to support it.
0 Votes
+ -
Used Servers
nrkmann@... 1st Feb 2010
For my garage I buy upright IBM dual xeon
servers on ebay for less than $150. Dual 3GH,
1-2GB RAM, 10/10/1000 ethernet and free
shipping. Server quality components that last
forever. SCSI drives at my local Free Geek
(http://www.freegeek.org) are $5ea (20%
discount if you are a volunteer). For less than
$300 I have two servers one running W2K Server
and one running W2003S (COAs on the box)with
Raid 1 for the OS and Raid 5 for data. The same
box as a workstation with an XP COA is $400 on
ebay. Go figure.

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix