It could be a contest with varying difficulties. Starting from beginner to very advanced or something. Maybe beginner could be the hd cable unplugged and that's it. Then it scales up to installing a card or 2, ram, drives, cables, etc..
Different bracket levels will have different times obviously and the prizes could get better the more advanced you get. Keep the cases simple for the most part, but if you really wanna go crazy advanced, make it full server build and post.
All of that being said, the response we've gotten to this little trade show challenge is inspiring. We're definitely going to incorporate some of these comments in future iterations of the challenge, so keep the feedback coming.
1U server instead of a tower? We can probably do that. Having it post before recording the time? Probably not going to happen at a trade show. How do you think we can make the competition better given the objectives explained below?
It's awesome to see such passionate comments, and some great ideas have been posted. This is the first time we've offered this kind of competition at a trade show, and the interest is clearly off-the-charts. The winner of the netbook ended up with a time of 30.7 seconds, and we'll be posting that video soon.
It should be made clear that in no way did we intend to represent that this was "building" a server. The Server Challenge was to "rebuild" the server given a few disassembled components ...
The Server Challenge was designed with two purposes in mind: 1) Techs would jump at the chance to show off their expertise [which was done at the show and here in the comments], 2) We wanted to make the challenge appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, and 3) We wanted it to be short and sweet.
We opted for a tower server in consideration of the travel to and from the show (in a car driving from Houston to Austin), and it offered a little more space and familiarity for participants.
No one in The Planet's booth at SXSW actually works in any of The Plane's 8 data centers ... we were looking to engage an audience that otherwise may have just taken some collateral and a t-shirt [that can be unfortunately misread when covered by a lanyard :-) ].
Come on, commenters, it's just a show, it's not for real, just for fun. Surely they don't put desktop cases into 19" racks and don't break the equipment while assembling.
I thought it would be filling a Datacenter rack with 25 dell 2U's, running proper cabling, all units energized, and running on one or more vlans on a core switch.
A better competition would be to let all of the people at the trade show loose in your H1 data center to see who can find the next piece of hardware that's going to explode, taking out a wall and costing customers days of downtime.
I'm guessing it'll be a little longer than 50.7 seconds.
Very lame and very misleading. The planet server challenge is no challenge at all. The person installing the RAM didn't take notice of which way it should be installed and dropped it. He also lost time by installing the first RAM chip on the side he did therefore causing him to have to fumble with the power supply wiring.
This is by no means a server or a rebuild.
And... timing included to drop in a hot swap fan? Come on lame is lame and this is complete horse shit.
Server build for me would be assembling it from ground-up, empty case with everything layed-out on the table. People would get disqualified if it wouldn't work and boot installed OS. It would wonderfully work with two people at the same machine.
Ok, now go back and do it the right way. I hope they really aren't putting together this fast (and wrecklessly) at The Planet. Horrible marketing if you ask me.
Me thinks you should be disqualified of you do this without wearing a static strap. Even for this non-working ancient PC, wearing a static strap would set a good example.
I did 200 motherboard swaps in 8 hours one time; a bunch of AMD K6 systems at a school district had a support recall. Too bad I'm not at SXSW haha
I agree with pacbowl about the "challenge" being pretty watered down. I think it would work just as well at a show to build up the whole machine; you'd probably get a lot of spectators that way. You should also make sure the machine completes at least the POST each time, but even if it booted before the show, it's likely toast by now.
Yeah, I think putting the heatsink on the CPU needs to be included, and actually putting it on a rack, plugging in the power, ethernet, and kvm switch and powering it up to post should be required. Dude was pretty slow too regardless. I'd also like to see this in 1U. I should take apart one of my poweredge's when I get home and make a video of me putting it back together. We'll see though lol! I'd definitely participate in something like this if given a chance though.
But what about all the little case wires that control stuff like the power button, reset, HDD LED, etc....
That takes a lot longer than just plopping in a cpu, ram and hooking up some power and eide cables. What was shown are only the final steps in building a 10 year old box.
Make it real build competition, like mounting the MB, PSU, drives and seeing if it posts.
You're absolutely right about the time it takes to put together a server. This challenge was created specifically for a trade show environment where participants may be intimidated by the task and don't have much time to participate.
I'm not sure about the age of this particular server, but you're right that it's at least 10 years old. Given the number of people attempting the challenge, it's got zero chance of ever booting again. :-)
HERPES WITHOUT CAPES?
sacramentalist 1 year ago
I was there (Russell Bishop) and got 42.7 !
KabbishComics 1 year ago
It could be a contest with varying difficulties. Starting from beginner to very advanced or something. Maybe beginner could be the hd cable unplugged and that's it. Then it scales up to installing a card or 2, ram, drives, cables, etc..
Different bracket levels will have different times obviously and the prizes could get better the more advanced you get. Keep the cases simple for the most part, but if you really wanna go crazy advanced, make it full server build and post.
pacbowl 2 years ago
What, they're not going to plug it in and test it?
miggyb89 2 years ago
All of that being said, the response we've gotten to this little trade show challenge is inspiring. We're definitely going to incorporate some of these comments in future iterations of the challenge, so keep the feedback coming.
1U server instead of a tower? We can probably do that. Having it post before recording the time? Probably not going to happen at a trade show. How do you think we can make the competition better given the objectives explained below?
theplanetdotcom 2 years ago
It's awesome to see such passionate comments, and some great ideas have been posted. This is the first time we've offered this kind of competition at a trade show, and the interest is clearly off-the-charts. The winner of the netbook ended up with a time of 30.7 seconds, and we'll be posting that video soon.
It should be made clear that in no way did we intend to represent that this was "building" a server. The Server Challenge was to "rebuild" the server given a few disassembled components ...
theplanetdotcom 2 years ago
The Server Challenge was designed with two purposes in mind: 1) Techs would jump at the chance to show off their expertise [which was done at the show and here in the comments], 2) We wanted to make the challenge appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, and 3) We wanted it to be short and sweet.
We opted for a tower server in consideration of the travel to and from the show (in a car driving from Houston to Austin), and it offered a little more space and familiarity for participants.
theplanetdotcom 2 years ago
No one in The Planet's booth at SXSW actually works in any of The Plane's 8 data centers ... we were looking to engage an audience that otherwise may have just taken some collateral and a t-shirt [that can be unfortunately misread when covered by a lanyard :-) ].
In that sense, it was a success.
theplanetdotcom 2 years ago
Looks like no training at all. Any random dude would be just as fast.
Evi1M4chine 2 years ago
why all the hate people?
JawnMercernary 2 years ago
Come on, commenters, it's just a show, it's not for real, just for fun. Surely they don't put desktop cases into 19" racks and don't break the equipment while assembling.
kotique 2 years ago
common, u can do better
frvfilms 2 years ago
I thought it would be filling a Datacenter rack with 25 dell 2U's, running proper cabling, all units energized, and running on one or more vlans on a core switch.
Bummer. This was not up to my expectations.
problah 2 years ago
Lame. We're talking about servers here. Do it properly with 1U or 2U cases with hot-swappable drive bays.
bitanarch 2 years ago
This is fucking embarrassing.
finkone 2 years ago
It's a pretty cool idea, but it'd be more interesting if you have dual setups with rack gear for head to head competition.
Here's what I do for a new server:
UPS: Unbox, attach rails & mount, insert batteries
Array: Unbox, attach rails & mount, insert 7 drives
Server: Unbox, attach rails & mount, insert 2drives, connect cabling
Then power it all on and to test it configure a simple array on the storage controller.
Can't do it in 50seconds, but with screwless rails you could do it in <5mins.
notpeter 2 years ago
A better competition would be to let all of the people at the trade show loose in your H1 data center to see who can find the next piece of hardware that's going to explode, taking out a wall and costing customers days of downtime.
I'm guessing it'll be a little longer than 50.7 seconds.
nieaka 2 years ago
Very lame and very misleading. The planet server challenge is no challenge at all. The person installing the RAM didn't take notice of which way it should be installed and dropped it. He also lost time by installing the first RAM chip on the side he did therefore causing him to have to fumble with the power supply wiring.
This is by no means a server or a rebuild.
And... timing included to drop in a hot swap fan? Come on lame is lame and this is complete horse shit.
bricks00usa 2 years ago 3
Boo-hoo-hoo.
Server build for me would be assembling it from ground-up, empty case with everything layed-out on the table. People would get disqualified if it wouldn't work and boot installed OS. It would wonderfully work with two people at the same machine.
necromncr 2 years ago 3
Ok, now go back and do it the right way. I hope they really aren't putting together this fast (and wrecklessly) at The Planet. Horrible marketing if you ask me.
climagic 2 years ago
IDE cables?
jaymitchnj 2 years ago 2
Me thinks you should be disqualified of you do this without wearing a static strap. Even for this non-working ancient PC, wearing a static strap would set a good example.
dean358 2 years ago
7 hours later the software completed its install.
24 hours later, all the patches and kernel recompile were completed
;P
TheFurball1975 2 years ago
Stupid.
1) not a rack server, thats a desktop
2) you didnt grease the cpu
3) no HDDs?!
4) On top of all that, you should not rush putting a server together.
netburnr 2 years ago
I did 200 motherboard swaps in 8 hours one time; a bunch of AMD K6 systems at a school district had a support recall. Too bad I'm not at SXSW haha
I agree with pacbowl about the "challenge" being pretty watered down. I think it would work just as well at a show to build up the whole machine; you'd probably get a lot of spectators that way. You should also make sure the machine completes at least the POST each time, but even if it booted before the show, it's likely toast by now.
gork42 2 years ago
Yeah, I think putting the heatsink on the CPU needs to be included, and actually putting it on a rack, plugging in the power, ethernet, and kvm switch and powering it up to post should be required. Dude was pretty slow too regardless. I'd also like to see this in 1U. I should take apart one of my poweredge's when I get home and make a video of me putting it back together. We'll see though lol! I'd definitely participate in something like this if given a chance though.
GoatCheez666 2 years ago
What does your shirt say? "Herpes without capes?"
oceanfrog 2 years ago
00:40 He fumbled the RAM.
dr9 2 years ago
That eeeeeePC was actually most useful as the armrest in the beginning of the video!
They should have added the 3 hours to install an OS...
drumcatnau 2 years ago 2
Tell me I'm not the only one who initially thought his shirt said
"Herpes without capes."
Balefulmoon 2 years ago 7
def not the only one
joeseither 2 years ago
You are. I saw "Herpes without crepes." What, just cause you're a little infected means you can't eat delicious tiny pancakes?
DrunkZergling 2 years ago
sadly... i saw the same thing :D
langelagrenouille 2 years ago
Do you get time added on if you fry the RAM with static from your fat fingers?
idimmu 2 years ago
Also, at the beginning of the video, at first i thought his shirt said Herpes because of the way the badge holder was hanging over the O.
lapean111 2 years ago
Did anybody else read his shirt as "herpes without capes"?
ModusPonem 2 years ago
A. That dude is super slow.
B. Should include all steps mentioned above.
C. They need to boot it up afterwords to make sure that it is all hooked up correctly.
D. Challenge should include racking the server, as that is the part that sucks ass.
lapean111 2 years ago 2
Yeah that is bull. A real speed test is the whole thing. Mounting the MOBO and installing the rest. Lamesauce....
pczanebrown 2 years ago
But what about all the little case wires that control stuff like the power button, reset, HDD LED, etc....
That takes a lot longer than just plopping in a cpu, ram and hooking up some power and eide cables. What was shown are only the final steps in building a 10 year old box.
Make it real build competition, like mounting the MB, PSU, drives and seeing if it posts.
Also the floppy isn't hooked up.
pacbowl 2 years ago 11
Thanks for the comment, pacbowl!
You're absolutely right about the time it takes to put together a server. This challenge was created specifically for a trade show environment where participants may be intimidated by the task and don't have much time to participate.
I'm not sure about the age of this particular server, but you're right that it's at least 10 years old. Given the number of people attempting the challenge, it's got zero chance of ever booting again. :-)
theplanetdotcom 2 years ago
Ok... look at the video response I'm about to make....
whadang 2 years ago
We look forward to it!
theplanetdotcom 2 years ago
Well whandang ... 13 hours latter .. and I dont see your video response ..
Did you perhaps put together your video server wrong ??
kevorkian123 2 years ago