[svlug] do you know of a local place that would have switching PDUs in stock?

[Luke S Crawford]

"giovanni_re" <john_re at fastmail.us> writes:

> Mum mum mum mah, dude.
> 
> You _are_ in Silicon Valley.
> 
> What make & model is the one you're using?
> Take the cover off, take some pictures.
> Get us hot. Show us what you've got.


I ended up getting an APC AP7901 -  I paid $200 for it; they are
about $440 new.  I got mine from http://www.g2technologyinc.com  -  they were
advertising on craigslist.  It was funny, most of these equipment recycling
places are in bare warehouses.  You roll up to the loading dock and shout
until someone comes to take your cash.    But this place had me wait
in an office that was nicer than my doctor's.   (of course, they had some
security thing that was a pain.  it took almost an hour for me to get out
of there.)    Heh.  I brought along a guy I'm kinda hiring as an intern,
I guess you'd call it.  He is more of a software guy than a hardware guy,
so he was obviously pretty bored with the whole process.  and really, with
this sort of thing where you are only replacing one thing in the rack,
the best configuration is one person on site, and one person remote, I think.
Someone in a comfy chair who isn't distracted by the roar or wanting to
get out of the cold. 

I use ear protection (I got some hearing protectors at lowes that
aside from giving me 22Dbi of noise suppression, also function as headphones.)
they help a lot in terms of co-lo fatiuge, but i think having someone remote
verifying you don't forget things is still valuable.   But you don't really
need more than one person in the actual co-lo unless you are racking up a 
bunch of servers.

$200 isn't an awesome price for that part, but it's within reason, and
the thing sure looked new;  they had all the accessories.  

My old PDUs are BayTech RPC 3  -  same specs, 8 ports, 20 amps 120v,
serial and network accessable and well supported by powerman.  Cheap.  
common. but I've had a few that give me funny power readings.  I guess 
they are getting pretty old.

The APC has nicer mounting ears, too-  they allowed it to be outlets out, but
recessed in to the cabnet, so that there was room to close the door even with
plugs hanging off the thing (the ears on the baytechs force me to mount it 
plugs-in, which is considerably less convienient.)  And really, $25 per
server isn't much extra CapEx, considering the servers are around $2500 each.