Dell is INSANE

[sgtDiggle]

The company i work for uses Dell exclusively. Servers, laptops. everything. 

 

I recently got a quote for some 4TB SSD drives to upgrade one of our servers, which is also a Dell. 

 

First price: $4,000 per drive. 

 

I honestly almost fainted. I email them back and said there must be some mistake. I wanted 4TB SSD drives, not gold bricks. They responded and said they would look at the price. 

 

Second price: $1,900 per drive. 

 

Am I crazy to think this is insane? I took a look at a current quote i have for a webserver. The total quote is $10,000. It has 4 of these 4TB SSDs in it. Are they telling me that if i ordered this server without the SSD drives that it would only be a $3000 server? I can get an AMD Epic, 32GB Ram, dual power supplies, dual 10GB nics, and a Raid 1 Boss Card, 480GB for just $2000. 

 

For sanity check, I can get Seagate Iron Wolf 4TB SSDs for $705 per drive from CDW. 

 

I think Linus needs to drop some real doe and do a secret shopper Server Edition. 

 

edit* Prices are approx. and rounded DOWN! I can't supply the quotes, as per our agreement with Dell.

 

edit 2* These are the drives Dell 3.84TB SSD SATA Read Intensive 6Gbps 512e 2.5in Hot-plug , S4520 | Dell Canada

[Zando_]

What drives are they? 

[Thomas4]

They must have thought you were am Apple user.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Thomas4 said:

They must have thought you were am Apple user.

Apple SSDs are soldered in so you aren't getting an upgrade after initial purchase to begin with. 

[Thomas4]

Remember though, we ARE talking about Dell.

[LapsedMemory]

I'm going to guess they are quoting you SAS SSD drives, which are generally a lot more expensive than SATA SSD drives.  In fact, going from Dell's website, your pricing is a discount on some of their other offerings:

SAS SSD Drives | Dell USA

 

Newegg's offerings show you're looking at the standard Dell server markup, but it's not well out of the ballpark.  

Search Results: Showing results for SAS SSD | CDW

 

SAS SSD's run at 12Gbps, vs SATA's 6Gbps

 

Now, if my initial assumption was wrong, and they are quoting you SATA drives, then tell the rep to go pound salt.

[Zando_]

11 minutes ago, Thomas4 said:

Remember though, we ARE talking about Dell.

Which is why I asked what drives they are. As:

1 minute ago, LapsedMemory said:

I'm going to guess they are quoting you SAS SSD drives, which are generally a lot more expensive than SATA SSD drives.  In fact, going from Dell's website, your pricing is a discount on some of their other offerings:

SAS SSD Drives | Dell USA

 

Newegg's offerings show you're looking at the standard Dell server markup, but it's not well out of the ballpark.  

Search Results: Showing results for SAS SSD | CDW

 

SAS SSD's run at 12Gbps, vs SATA's 6Gbps

 

Now, if my initial assumption was wrong, and they are quoting you SATA drives, then tell the rep to go pound salt.

^^^ they could be quoting OP for high performance enterprise drives, not jim bob's office PC SATA 870 Evo. 

[SpookyCitrus]

My work is a dell partner as well, they are known far and wide for overpricing the hell out of their SSDs and Ram. It really depends on what kind they are trying to sell you for that much, we never do the dell drive or ram upgrades. It's much cheaper to do it yourself even with top of the line off the shelf hardware. The real question is if they are quoting you for Enterprise SSDs or Standard SATA SSDs. 

[ToboRobot]

You gotta compare Apples to Apples.  But yes, ordering from Dell who will support their products, will be more expensive than buying retail.

[manikyath]

i'm assuming these are enterprise server (SLC?) SSD's.

 

for that sort of gear, it's very common for the DELL's and HP's of this world to have absolutely STUPID 'public' pricing, but they can make you quotes that often get very close to 50% cheaper.

 

the reason they do this, is to give their partners the margins they need to thrive, without having to compete with publicly listed pricing for the same parts, which because of box moving companies is painfully close to purchase price.

 

paraphrased example for some HP aruba gear, was about 300k for the hardware for a project.. list price.

the internal quote we (the partner) got was in the 160k order of magnitude, we quoted the client 190k.

 

to the client this looks like we cut them one hell of a deal, we quietly get our cut of the pie, and HP doesnt have to bother with the sale work, and has a 'layer in between' to deal with warranty support if ever needed.

 

it's a means to create a win-win-win scenario. the list price is never actually supposed to end up on an actual quote. and yes.. the list price sometimes makes it onto a quote, and partners are there to tell HP/DELL to fuck off and get a decent price... which will then appear two days later.

[sgtDiggle]

4 hours ago, LapsedMemory said:

I'm going to guess they are quoting you SAS SSD drives, which are generally a lot more expensive than SATA SSD drives.  In fact, going from Dell's website, your pricing is a discount on some of their other offerings:

SAS SSD Drives | Dell USA

 

Newegg's offerings show you're looking at the standard Dell server markup, but it's not well out of the ballpark.  

Search Results: Showing results for SAS SSD | CDW

 

SAS SSD's run at 12Gbps, vs SATA's 6Gbps

 

Now, if my initial assumption was wrong, and they are quoting you SATA drives, then tell the rep to go pound salt.

Nah. they are not SAS. I checked that already. 

[sgtDiggle]

Just now, sgtDiggle said:

Nah. they are not SAS. I checked that already.

 

Dell 3.84TB SSD SATA Read Intensive 6Gbps 512e 2.5in Hot-plug , S4520 | Dell Canada 

 

[sgtDiggle]

4 hours ago, Zando_ said:

What drives are they? 

Dell 3.84TB SSD SATA Read Intensive 6Gbps 512e 2.5in Hot-plug , S4520 | Dell Canada

[LapsedMemory]

7 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

Dell 3.84TB SSD SATA Read Intensive 6Gbps 512e 2.5in Hot-plug , S4520 | Dell Canada

That's nuts.  You should ask them to quote sas and see what that price is

[Zando_]

9 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

Dell 3.84TB SSD SATA Read Intensive 6Gbps 512e 2.5in Hot-plug , S4520 | Dell Canada

Looks like those are a Samsung PM883 Enterprise drive: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-3-84TB-PM883-SATA6-MZ7LH3T8HMLT-00005/dp/B07GD5KVKX

 

Around $700 bare, $1049 in the Dell housing from 3rd party sellers. Looks like Dell is quoting you way too much for those drives, about $850 over what a 3rd party seller will give you a brand new one for, so definitely see if they will drop it further on a 3rd quote. Although I am not familiar with Dell's enterprise stuff, don't know how warranty and such works through 3rd party sellers vs Dell themselves for their gear.

[wseaton]

S4520 refers to an Intel SSD, which is weird because Dell Server SSDs are typically rebranded Samsung. Ive used this particular SSD series in servers (the Intel,)  and its top of the food chain in terms of its class. 

 

The Intel SSDs can be had for $600-700. 

 

Yes, Dell and HP vastly over price their storage and milk their VARs. The urban myth is that their branded storage has speshul specifications so its guaranteed to work with their RAID controllers, etc. Its complete and total horseshit.  Only advantage is the warranty fits under a single SKU.

 

Rather than whine about Dell or HP dont buy it. MSPs buy this trash, mark it up another 25% and pass it on to small businesses.  A $2500 server starts to cost $10,000. However, IT directors also write these checks rather than opt for saving a lot of money, then claim to be hereos when they shove everything into Azure and all the money they supposedly "saved". 

 

I would get the bare Intel drives and enclosures. These SSDs are some of the best ever made in terms of value.