Re: [cobalt-users] Memory pricing

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carrie Bartkowiak wrote:

> Wow - I can't believe the answers in this thread. I think that either
> most of the people who answered own their RaQs

It always pays to own your own system.  If you plan on being in the
business long-term you're much better off leasing a RaQ and colocating
it somewhere.  The price may be a little higher for a year or so, but
then the system is yours outright.

And you can add as much memory as you want at your own price <smile>.

> I'm sure that his NOC did NOT make a 'mistake' when saying it would
> be an extra 90 per month - take a good look around at many of the
> places offering dedicated server rentals. With the majority of them,
> if you do not upgrade the RAM immediately when ordering, they will
> charge you a monthly fee to upgrade it.

No, I didn't know that.  I rented for the first six months or so.  Then
I bit the bullet and spent a lot of time moving sites, etc., from one
place to another.  It's absolutely not the cost so much as it is the
renumbering, reinstalling, etc., etc.

> I know, it's ridiculous and
> stupid because you end up paying for that RAM over and over again
> every two months or so, but that's what they're doing.

Sure, because they've got you where they want you, by the IP#s and
installations.  Most of us can't move easily, most of us won't move.  As
an example, note the UK-based company that shall go nameless... their
customers are still there, a year or more later, long after they've
realized the low initial price is no bargain, simply because it's so
complex to move.

> Again, one of the reasons I got into hosting - the hosts just screwed
> you any way they could, even if it was horribly apparent and
> overboard. This behavior is not restricted to just hosts, I've
> found... the NOCs do it too.

Depends what you mean by screwing.  The NOCs (if that's what you want to
call them; I'd bet the percentage of customers here who have machines in
what I'd call a "NOC" is under 10%, and nothing I'd ever call a "NOC"
would rent out a machine) have extremely high costs themselves.

> I have two suggestions:
> 1. Find a new NOC that will not charge you outrageous fees like a
> monthly price for RAM. You need one that will charge you one time for
> an upgrade (total price of RAM and labor to install it), or the
> second option...
> 2. Find a NOC that will allow *you* to purchase quality RAM proven to
> work in the RaQs and send it to them to install in your box. They can
> still charge a fee for the labor to install it, but since they didn't
> buy the RAM, then they have no right to charge you a monthly fee.

If I rented out systems (which I don't), I'd never allow the second
option.  If there's something wrong with the RAM that shorts out my RaQ,
who's going to pay to replace it?  Do you buy RAM from swap-meet
sellers, or from unknown sellers on eBay?  Lots of people do.  The RAM
may be guaranteed, but who pays for my machine?

I like the third option a lot better... find a good place to put your
own RaQ, and take responsibility for ownership yourself.

> BTW, a Micron stick of PC133 RAM 256MB is running about $69 USD here
> retail, a bit lower on the wholesale end (like on Ebay or the
> computer trade shows).

I'd hardly call either eBay or computer trade shows (read: swap meets)
wholesale venues.  And yes, I speak from hard-learned experience.  These
guys are just traders; they buy excess and/or distressed merchandise
(often pulls), and sell it at a meager profit; too meager most of the
time to be worth their trouble if anything goes wrong.

Here was my last experience:  I bought two sticks of RAM for a new
computer I was putting together, total 128MB, at one of those "trade
shows" as you call them, the Computer Fair at the Pomona Calif.
fairgrounds.  One of the sticks didn't work.  I called the vendor.  "No
problem, bring it back and I'll exchange it."

So I brought it back.  Sixty-seven miles through Los Angeles traffic (I
WAS in a hurry, which is why I bought at the "swap meet" to begin with
<frown>.  The vendor operated from an open garage door in a small tract
house.  Before agreeing to take the RAM back he tested it in three
different computers.  I had the uncomfortable impression that had it
worked in even one of them (without any kind of formal testing as to
speed, dropped bits over time, with heat, etc.) he would have considered
it good and refused to take it back.

When he was finally convinced it was bad, he did take it back, and
replaced it with another stick of another brand.  It was the last one he
had of that size.  What would he have done if he had sold out the day
before at the "swap meet"?  I have no idea.

But I DID learn my lesson.

> No idea what that translates to in pounds,

48.71 this morning (http://www.xe.net/ucc/).

> and truly no clue on what "VAT" is (other than something you put
> brewing ale into...)

Value Added Tax; it's much simpler to figure/collect than the U.S.
"sales tax" system.  There are no exemptions.  Everyone who sells a
product sells adds the percentage of VAT on the difference between what
he bought it for and what he sold it for.  So there's no such thing as a
"wholesale" exemption.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 787-8589  *  fax: (909) 782-0205