What is this RDIMM price from Dell?

[dragontamer5788]

I'm not normally part of buying stuff for the office, but... I guess I had an idea, talked it over with my boss and now a 2U rackmount concept is coming up. I went to Dell to build out a r7515 and... wtf? I'm getting some sticker-shock here.

That... can't be right? $552 per stick of 16GB RDIMM RAM? I mean, its not my money so I can probably just expense it (my boss is technical enough to know but he's in on it, lol). But... I'd like to at least put some amount of thought into how ridiculous this price is. Is this normal? Standard PC UDIMMs are going for like $60 right now for 16GBs. I'd expect a markup a little bit for RDIMMs (at least 12% higher for ECC, and then a bit extra for "server grade" / enterprise bullshit) but this is kind of ridiculous. Even for a premade box.

I'd rather not waste my organization's money if... you know... a reasonable price of RAM is somewhere else. I'd imagine that 256GB is reasonable for an office server these days but with $1000 buckaroos per 32GB DIMM this just isn't right.

I mean, I guess I could buy the darn thing with the bare minimum to boot... and then buy some Crucial RAM and manually shove it into the rack as part of the rack-mounting process. Is that what people normally do? Has Dell prices really always just screwed people over on RAM like this?

 

[Toothless]

Ebay be your friend. I got 8x16GB for around $450, however 2133mt/s.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Ebay be your friend. I got 8x16GB for around $450, however 2133mt/s.

Well, you know office politics. Gotta go through the designated supplier and whatever.

If I were setting this up in my basement, yeah, 100% I'd go to ebay for this stuff. But we gotta have someone "to blame" if things don't work out. For better or worse, Dell does a good job at being the "office politics dude to blame" when something goes wrong.

Looks like Crucial / Micron Server has a guarantee on their stuff working on Dell servers. Maybe I can just buy Micron Server RAM and still play out the office politics right? Or is it even worth the hassle at that point?

 

[Bill_Bright]

A link would have been much better for us - instead of just a screen shot.

 

[dragontamer5788]

A link would have been much better for us - instead of just a screen shot.

Apologies for forgetting important information in my first post. You're right, here ya go:

PowerEdge R7515 Rack Server | Dell USA

View the Dell PowerEdge R7515 rack server and shop all of our servers at Dell.com. Delivers peak performance and excellent TCO. The Bedrock of the Modern Data Center.

www.dell.com

 

[cvaldes]

Looks like Crucial / Micron Server has a guarantee on their stuff working on Dell servers. Maybe I can just buy Micron Server RAM and still play out the office politics right? Or is it even worth the hassle at that point?

Don't ask us. Ask the person whose budget this is coming out of. Your boss, your boss's boss, whoever.

Let's say something goes wrong. Dell will point their finger at Crucial and say, "Ask them." Crucial will point their finger back at Dell and say, "Nope, not our fault. Ask them."

This might go on for days, weeks, even months. Is it worth twiddling your thumbs while two parties squabble over this? This is not our call. This expense is coming out of someone budget. ASK THAT PERSON.

Your boss (or whoever) should make the call. "Ah, this isn't mission critical. If it's down for a week, that's no biggie. Our IT guys will get to it after they replace the fuser on the color laser printer and set up the new delivery of iPhones." Or "no, this is mission critical, we can't afford to wait for these jokesters to bicker over this."

By sticking with a single source, one company is on the line.

Note that this isn't specific to hardware. There are similar business choices for software. Let's say you buy the Oracle RDBMS and have some third-party consultant install it. If something goes wrong, the installer will point their finger at Oracle and Oracle will point their finger at the installer. If you buy Oracle with a support contract, their own support engineer will install the software and certify the installation.

Where do you think our tax dollars go? When the US Navy selects Oracle to track their spare parts inventory, do you think they will save a few bucks and go with Dodgy Bros. Consulting for the installation? NO. They will have the highest level support contract from Oracle.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Server RAM can be pricy. But I suspect they are asking so much because it has that DELL logo on it.

Another reason is because of all the time and effort it takes for them to install it. I say that because it seems that same RAM costs $75 less if you buy it separately.

Dell Memory Upgrade - 16GB - 2RX8 DDR4 RDIMM 3200MHz | Dell USA

 

[dragontamer5788]

By sticking with a single source, one company is on the line.

I mostly agree. But sticker shock is making me consider other options, lol. I have enough experience here to 100% agree with you. But seeing a +400% upcharge (aka: 5x the price) I was expecting for RAM is a bit much.

Let's say something goes wrong.

Yeah. I opened up the box, and therefore its my fault. Probably anyway. Even if it wasn't my fault, I touched it last. Gotta love office politics. Fortunately, its not going to be mission critical. But I'd still hate to be in the position of "I touched the box last", ya know?

Even if Crucial shipped me bad RAM. Even if Dell shipped a bad motherboard, that'd be the position I'd be in and that's never worth the hassle. But I'm still allowed to dream, right? If this were my basement project, there'd be so many more options.

 

[cvaldes]

Again ask the person who will paying for it.

If they go with Dell, it doesn't matter who touched it last. Dell has to fix it.

It's no different with a personal purchase. If you bought a HP Pavilion for your wife and it stops working, you call up HP. If you bought all of the individual components listed in my system specs, slapped them together and something goes wrong, you're the tech support. You're the one paying for it, is it worth sweating at 10pm while your wife stands with her arms crossed, tapping her feet? And if you bought the HP Pavilion and upgraded it with aftermarket parts, HP Customer Support will probably say, "Ask ____. You bought their ____."