Le 2012-03-06 04:11, Invisible a écrit :
>>> OTOH, it seems that any equipment that says "rack mountable" on it is
>>> instantly 5x the price, for no apparent reason...
>>
>> Of course, the engineering that goes in designing the special connectors
>> to power and manage these boards, as well as keep them ventilated comes
>> free of charge, in your world...
>
> What "special connectors"?

I was talking more about "blade servers", since the original topic was 
the Google servers, where each blade gets its power, remote management 
and network connections from a central backplane.

but even if we are talking about a "desktop" PC case vs. a 
rack-mountable server with a similar CPU.  The rackmountable server will 
have a lot more consideration put into its ventilation and heat 
disspation since it is made to be in a closed space full of other 
heat-generating devices.  Secondly, rack-mounted servers usually come 
with a lot of extra feautres not usually found on classical desktop 
hardware, such as hot-swappable disks, power supplies, and in some 
cases, memory and CPUs.

You need to realise that these things also contribute to the price of a 
rack-mountable server.

>
> Buy a UPS that sits under your desk. That's £50. Buy a UPS that is rack
> mountable. That's £800, minimum. Sure, they probably don't sell rack UPS
> with capacities as low as they do for the desktop. But 16x the price?
> Really? For a battery and an inverter?

It depends on the battery.  And besides, you are comparing apples and 
bulldozers.

Maybe besides size there are other factors to consider...  Let's compare 
a "home" unit, vs. a rackmountable unit of the same power rating and 
same supplier.

"Home" UPS

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE750G&total_watts=200

Output capacity: 450W/750VA.
Run time @400W: 3 min.
Run time @100W: 40 min.
Recharge time: 16 hrs.
Alarms: power/on battery/replace battery led display.
Management: N/A
Price: ~100$

"Rackmountable" UPS

Output capacity: 480W/750VA.
Run time @400W: 8 min.
Run time @100W: 50 min.
Recharge time: 4 hrs.
Alarms: Audible alarms when on battery/low battery/Replace battery
Management: vis DB-9, RS-232, SmartSlot or USB.  Network management card 
optional.
Price: ~500$

So the rackmountable unit recharges 4x faster and has much better 
management capabilities - I mean what good does a LED display do you in 
an unattended server room? - for 5x the price.  Seems reasonable to me.

The "entry-level" rackmountable unit has a lot more to offer than the 
"top-of-the-line" standalone unit, besides mounting brackets.

>
> Buy a 12-port desktop switch. £30, maybe? Now buy a rack mountable one.
> That'll be £200 please. Sure, it's physically bigger. There's more metal
> in it. Metal costs money. But does it cost /that/ much money?

What's the MTBF of your 30$ desktop switch?   Does it have remote 
management capabilities?  What about problem diagnostics?  How many 
packets per second can it process?  Does it support vlans?  QoS?  PPPoE? 
  802.1x authentication?  Etc...

>
> (Before anyone asks - no, just because it can be rack mounted, that does
> /not/ mean it has management features. When I joined the company, we had
> a whole rack full of switches, all rack mounted, none of them managed.
> And all about £400 each.)

Not manageABLE or simply not managed? Also [citation needed] brand and 
model?

>
> Redundant power supplies cost extra. RAID controllers cost extra.
> Hot-swap drive bays cost extra. And yet, a server that has these costs
> nowhere near as much as a rack-mount server.

[citation needed] Brand and model?

> Now sure, making something
> like a server actually small enough to be rack mounted is nontrivial.
> There's a reason laptops cost 5x the price of a similar desktop. I
> understand that. But for goodness' sake, if you make a /wire clamp/
> that's rack mountable, suddenly it goes from being £2 to £80. It's like
> it's a license to print money...

Then make one and sell it for only £50 and drive the £80-clamp guy out 
of business, if it's that easy.

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