[lug] server spec

[Nate Duehr]

On Jun 8, 2007, at 7:20 PM, Calvin Dodge wrote:

> And, frankly, they think just as highly of Kingston RAM, which is
> available from Newegg.com for about $5 less per gig.

Kingston is (quite literally) a crap-shoot.   Far-east manufacturers  
(especially Japanese) don't handle inventory the way Western  
companies do.  They state at the beginning of the quarter how much  
RAM they're going to produce, no matter what, and Kingston uses this  
to their advantage.  In quarters where the manufacturers build too  
much RAM, Kingston bids low on "whatever's left over".

Sometimes you get good stuff, sometimes you get junk.  It all depends  
on who overbuilt for their demand, but the rule of averages tends to  
lean Kingston toward the cheapest RAM manufacturers in the cheapest  
places with the product no one wants.  This coming second-hand from  
someone I know very well, who used to work in the RAM sales biz...

Personal anecdote, I've had at least two Kingston 1GB sticks fail in  
odd ways, and they were always great about replacement (you pay  
shipping to them, they pay shipping to you on their RMA system, and  
you apply for the RMA online, making it as simple as possible), but  
having had those two failures (especially since odd RAM failures are  
incredibly annoying), I wouldn't put Kingston in a critical server  
environment.  If you do, memtest86 will become your best friend.

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com