The people we have to deal with...

[~Darkseeker~]

right, so here's the story. An accountant came to us to build her two more modern, Windows 7 PCs for their main office, to replace their old XP boxes. No domain or server, just a workgroup set up with a business hub. She said all they do in the office is Sage and web browsing. Sage isn't all that demanding but it's nice for it to run nicely, we we're thinking along the lines of dual-core athlon, 250 or something and 4GB DDR3. I was quite surprised when the boss said she rang saying she wasn't happy with the quote, and wanted 8GB RAM and a quad-core Phenom (we decided on the 840 at 3.2GHz). Earlier today she phoned saying that she had read online that the 840 wasn't as fast as it could be, and she wanted something better. Ontop of all this she wanted them to be below 600 quid a piece. Baring in mind she knows nothing of computers besides what she's read on the internet (ebuyer reviews i'm guessing) she's idiotically specific. She then moaned that the price went up from the original quote.

So, her Sage and browsing PCs ended up as:

AMD Phenom II x4 840 @ 3.2GHz
8GB Kingston Hyper-X 1600 DDR3
2x500GB WD Caviar blue in RAID0
Antec Three-Hundred Case + Akasa 120mm fans
Windows 7 HP x64

In total, she's paying £1550 including installation, setup and first month's support. They say a little knowledge is dangerous, in this case, she's paying £1500 for a couple of server-grade machines for browsing the net.

 

[cboucher]

So why would that be a problem? Does your company have an issue with making a profit? Just kidding...

 

[~Darkseeker~]

we make about 50s on each one, we'd make alot more if she ordered the cheaper ones ^_^

 

[cboucher]

Your story reminds me of that old saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted". Maybe you guys should start charging a moron fee for certain customers.

 

[Dngrsone]

RAID0? What kind of crap is that? A RAID1 setup would at least go toward protecting her from random drive crashes.

 

[krone6]

RAID0? What kind of crap is that? A RAID1 setup would at least go toward protecting her from random drive crashes.

Well, seeing as she wanted 8GB of ram for sage, she probably wanted raid 0 as well.

(imo, a 1TB or larger drive is better. For some reason after 1TB the drives get very fast and much sturdier... I've seen A 1.5tb wd black transfer at 100MB/S)

 

[Chipeater]

RAID0? What kind of crap is that? A RAID1 setup would at least go toward protecting her from random drive crashes.

It just has to last one month, after that the customer will get charged for support. I have to agree though, RAID 1 makes more sense, data reliability is more important than data speed.

 

[~Darkseeker~]

If it was up to be she'd be rocking an Athlon II X2 250 and 4GB DDR3, and just a regular 500GB drive for primary storage, we provide offsite backup anyway, so data integrity is not an issue.

 

[Chipeater]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not nitpicking. I'm just curious. How much of a performance boost do you get with two drive in RAID 0 compared with no RAID?

 

[Dngrsone]

Ideally, you'll cut your access times in half. We're talking milliseconds or even nanoseconds... important for high-volume servers and serious online gamers, but for the average Joe, there would likely be little noticeable difference.