Dell c6100 24-bay: 8x CPU, 96GB ECC RAM, 24 trays, Dell next-day warranty til 2015

[dba]

UPDATED UPDATED UPDATE: All Sold.

UPDATED UPDATE: Only one left - SATA version. Some 2.5" drives left.

UPDATE: One sold, with one 6G SAS/SATA version one one SATA-only version left. No more 8GB DIMMS available. Only 4 Mellanox cards left.

I'm selling three of my 24-bay c6100 servers - they are up on eBay now. Any STH reader buying for their own use (as opposed to company use) gets free shipping (up to $100) plus four free 72GB Seagate SAS boot drives.

The 24-bay version of the c6100 is rarer and more expensive than the 12-bay version, and is perfect for SSDs, especially if you add the LSI SAS2008 mezzanine card. Get the 12-bay version if you want cheap bulk storage, but definitely check out the 24-bay version for your database or VM server, or any system needing more than trivial disk IO.

See: Dell PowerEdge C6100 24 Bay w 24 Trays 8x L5520 CPU 96GB RAM Dell Warranty | eBay
and
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=161150413742
and
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=161150417257

Included items:

• C6100 chassis
• Dual 1100W power supplies
• 4x Motherboard sleds - version that is compatible with Infiniband and 10GbE cards
• 8x Heatsinks
• 8x Intel Xeon L5520 CPUs
• 24x Kingston 4GB DDR3-1333 ECC DRAM sticks (96GB total)
• 24x 2.5" disk trays (They are HP trays, which just happen to fix perfectly in the c6100)
• Dell rack rails for c6100
• 2x power cords available - ask if you want them

I have three such servers that I plan to sell, so ask if you want more than one. If you would prefer to buy without RAM, just ask - I'll subtract $10 per stick. I also have 8GB DDR3-1333 ECC sticks and Mellanox ConnectX-2 QDR/10GbE cards with firmware that supports RDMA in Windows - again just ask for a custom auction. If you want a few 72GB Seagate SAS drives added, they are $15 each. Lastly, I can upgrade all four nodes with LSI SAS2008 SAS/SATA mezzanine cards and wiring for an additional $800, which sounds like a lot but is a deal for four cards, four risers, and four cable sets.

Some photos:

 

[Andyreas]

Hey Dba. Any chance you would ship to Sweden. For My company, not personal use.

 

[dba]

Hey Dba. Any chance you would ship to Sweden. For My company, not personal use.

Working with your own freight forwarder is likely be the best option, but I can (and just did) turn on International shipping in eBay, which is a form of freight forwarding managed by eBay. Take a look and let me know how much they are charging. It's a big and very heavy box, so it won't be cheap.

Also, I just checked UPS, which will ship to Stockholm, for example, for between $675 and $720 depending on the exact weight - I have only an estimate of the weight at this point.

And for more than one server it might make sense to look at someone like: http://www.discountshipping.us/sea/economy3.cfm

 

[darkconz]

I am just wondering, if you upgrade the RAID card to SAS2008, then you cannot put in the InifiniBand card correct?

 

[dba]

I am just wondering, if you upgrade the RAID card to SAS2008, then you cannot put in the InifiniBand card correct?

Actually, you can. I ran these with the LSI 2008 SAS/SATAA board in the mezzanine slots and Mellanox ConnectX-2 dual port IB cards in the PCIe slots - 3GB/s disk IO and 3GB/s network IO.

The essentially equivalent setup is to use the IB mezzanine card and an LSI PCIe card like the 9201-8i. This gives you the exact same chips and the same performance as the above, but the wiring with this latter setup isn't quite as clean.

 

[Andyreas]

Hey dba. Thanks alot for checking UPS, that is the prize most other vendors are shipping for to Sweden too. Some have that IPS thing thou and that is usually half prize. Problem is I can't see it turned on on the auction. It still only shows "shipping to United States". Any chance I can bother you with checking up on that?

 

[dba]

Hey dba. Thanks alot for checking UPS, that is the prize most other vendors are shipping for to Sweden too. Some have that IPS thing thou and that is usually half prize. Problem is I can't see it turned on on the auction. It still only shows "shipping to United States". Any chance I can bother you with checking up on that?

Fixed now... not that you'll like the results. eBay wants $1K for shipping!

 

[Andyreas]

If you wonder why I am so quiet it is because I am still crying when seeing that freightcost....damn Sweden.

 

[pgh5278]

how to save on shipping

Hello Andyreas, Having worked overseas most of my life, I learnt that there are several level of AF air freight rates.( just like seat prices on planes, people in the same row can pay anything from 100 to 1000 dollars, dinars, euros, roubles, francs, South pacific Peso ( commonly called the Australian dollar..)

The over riding issues which control what a person pays for freight are the following..I may not use the absolute correct terms, but this is for an idea..
1. DIM is very important it is a calculation of lengths, widths, heights divided by a volume factor, ( so even if you have a very light but very large box, the airlines / couriers have a safety (profit maintenance) factor built in, and the the DIM equivalent volume is used as cost basis.
1.a So boxes with lots of empty space or filled with foam may cost you a lot, but of course their is a clear benefit for this on occasions, so volume can be reduced, but some risk of damage in increased..

2. KG or LBS,, their is a kick over point where the weight of your box has less options for shipping, this varies by carrier, I often see 66lbs and 72 lbs as these breakoverpoints. You can always remove some heavier components, like power supplies to drop several Kg,,
2a. There is also a similar point for the addition of L, D,W etc..
So just like something that is more common, the pricing is more competitive...and more carriers..in season fruit is much cheaper than when out of season..

3. The more you buy the better the rates you get.... So if you and I or the odd Ebay merchant calls up a courier, the first rates will be high, unless a good negotiated rate has been agreed based on the volume of business that they send to the courier. So best to ship with a company that ships a lot with a certain courier / country etc...
3a my recent example was purchasing a SM CSE 219 16 bay 2u case.. the ebay shipping was 760 usd.. Only took 2 emails ( one each ) and the final price I paid this week was 289.99USD still thru the same merchant..( so complete new machine a $20 part missing for under 600 including shipping. The global Ebay shipping program has many good points, but looses competitiveness on larger boxes rack chassis etc..

Options / Alternaitives:: You need to know exactly the LxHxH and weight, no estimations.. Understand the game you are playing in,,, within one hr, you can learn all you need to know about shipping to one's home country..
there are many freight forwarder, some specializing in different countries, different products services.. I know there are other forum members use "shipito". I did a quick check on pricing to stockholm sweden see attached results,,the lower price option often is the lowest price for other destinations as well, indicating they have better rates with them. These guys also have multiple ship points in US, as well as Austria,..

dont seem to have attachment privileges, need help...

There are also others doing this, but these guys have good feedback from another forum member here in Australia..
Hope this helps..and save some bucks...as they are out there to be saved..
I used to work for almost 30 years for an oilfield service company in field operations, and what we paid for freight would make you weep...But if we tried to ship someing over about 15 ft in length in a containerized freight system on commercial flights then we also got it stuck to us as well...But then I would also ship 747SP pretty well full of explosives ( with passengers from memory)from chicago to singapore via Seoul, at really low prices.
Good Luck..
PS, note that this is no reflection on the DBA sale below, his items are good price and competetive, but freight is out of his control..PGH

 

[Andyreas]

Wow, that is a great and long answer, thank you very much for the info pgh5278. The question is just how would I be able to bribe dba to go thru all that trouble for me.. I checked out ishipto and the Went on to check rates to send via TNT Economy etc and we are down to very reasonable rates. But that would become quite alot of extra work for the seller I guess.

 

[pgh5278]

I think is less work for DBA / and or any seller, he just ships to a US address,
The buyer has the extra work to do, and only once to set it up...You will need to open shipito account and you do the rest,, the seller has less issues as it is a domestic shipment, not an international..for me I see it is a win win situation..

DBA, Your thoughts?? PGH

 

[Andyreas]

Ohh now I got it. I am a swede after all so it takes a lil bit longer. dba, I'll probably be interested in the mezzanine (6Gb/s) too.

 

[dba]

Andyreas and phg5278,

Looks like you solved it while I was sleeping!

phg5278, thanks for sharing some excellent info. Andyreas, your best price for shipping requires that you set up an account with some type of freight company, probably a forwarder with ties to your country. With more than one server shipped together on a pallet, the savings are very large. I'm willing to ship it myself, without a forwarder, of course, but for that I need to rely on the established vendors so that I don't end up spending several uncompensated hours dealing with logistics. It's true that even basic UPS shipping to overseas destinations still requires me to fill out customs forms, but that's OK if it means a happy owner of some new server gear.

Joking: How about delivery by sailboat? I'll just load the servers onto my boat and meet you on the Göta canal. It'd take three months, but then my sailing would be a tax deductable expense!

 

[pgh5278]

DBA, just glad to be able to use my non IT skills to help forum members. Now I am busy trying to sell some new items in original boxes on EBAY Australia, so i can dream about DBA's memory and some mellanox cards..or perhaps a c6100, although I feel the supermicro twin node 6026TT is more simple for me and perhap seasier to make more silent.
Just imagine if airlines sold paint.. price would depend which day you oainted and whether you used it all a once or within a week or month etc.. There is a very good joke about this..but is very valid to pricing... Have a good week..

 

[pgh5278]

For those of us who do not live in USA ( land of lower cost items, having lived in Texas multiple times for work), I used my own recommendations as provided to Andryeas and DBA, about using "shipito".
Feedback is " it works, simple and flexible". I purchased a HP dl180 from DBA, he shipped it to one of their 5 warehouses in US. It arrived their , they took 10 photos for 2.50, storage is free for upto 90 days. I decided to ship it this tuesday, and it is here at my house at lunch time on friday ( thrusday evening US time). Had the choice to use DHL, TNT, and 4 others. The freight is seriously cheap to what is offered on ebay etc. Fright and insurance was 175USD with provided about 48 hrs from shipping to receiving in Australia..Fill customs forms online at shipito.." It is refreshing to find something that is simple and works well. Have another 3 shipments sitting at their warehouse, will try some consolidation this time..
regards P