Our sister site just got one hell of a makeover!

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Good morning lovely Edugeekers!

 

I trust that this half term has left you peacefully enjoying the quiet calm that only an empty school brings? If not then I totally expect you to be blasting heavy metal through the PA system to "test" it (I'm looking at you @FishCustard )

 

Just a quick announcement. Our sister site, Bargain Hardware, has had a major overhaul recently. Some of you may have seen me mention it in other posts, but for those of you that haven't here are the salient points.

 

This new site is a custom build using the Magento platform. It talks to our Microsoft Dynamics NAV backend and pulls through live stock information.

As a result, it's now possible to accurately configure an ever-expanding host of enterprise hardware from the chassis, through CPU, RAM, Storage, PSU and expansion cards.

There's also an impressively large catalogue of spare parts - upwards of 5,000 components - so if you want to check and see if we have that raid cable in stock, this is your moment!

 

So, what does this mean for you guys? Well at the moment, not much from a schools purchasing POV. You'll be able to use the site to get accurate pricing on servers, workstations and components before coming to Myself or John to place the order.

As usual, we'll tag on a nice extended warranty for your troubles - new for 2019 that's 3 years on all rack servers! - and will be on hand to offer any support you might need.

 

"Well what about the ICT-Direct website!?" I hear you ask. Well I'm happy to say that development on a new ICT Direct webpage with the same level of functionality as Bargain Hardware continues apace and will be ready to go live later in the year.

 

So, check it out, let us know what you think? A lot of time has gone into getting it as detailed as possible.

 

www.bargainhardware.co.uk

[Norphy]

It looks quite nice but there are at least three things on the front page alone which are showing as costing £0.00.

 

If you want to give servers away then hey, that's cool but you might want to look at that

[pete]

I spotted them posting in /r/homelab about it yesterday.

 

Just give them a nudge to fix the your / you're typo on the homelab page. (https://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/refurbished-servers/home-lab-servers)

 

or do you perhaps only need two low powered Hex core processors for what your trying to accomplish?

[bald_pig]

It looks quite nice but there are at least three things on the front page alone which are showing as costing £0.00.

 

If you want to give servers away then hey, that's cool but you might want to look at that

 

Ooh, I could do with some free servers!

 

Our PA system is the phones so naff for music, luckily I have an old classroom speaker system set up in my office

[ICTDirect_Dave]

It looks quite nice but there are at least three things on the front page alone which are showing as costing £0.00.

If you want to give servers away then hey, that's cool but you might want to look at that

Yeah, I've mentioned that, I think it's due to there being more than one different version of the chassis. Until one of those is selected there's nothing in the bundle to calculate a price from.

I spotted them posting in /r/homelab about it yesterday.

 

Just give them a nudge to fix the your / you're typo on the homelab page. (https://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/refurbished-servers/home-lab-servers)

 

Passing this along now!

[FishCustard]

Ooooh very nice - I'll have a look before I place the order for servers for our new site (I have one in hand from you guys, but may want to update it as hardware prices may have fallen).

 

As for the PA system testing, less heavy metal and more classical / movie soundtracks / showtunes in my case (I'm not cool) ;D

[Fazza]

For me it's a bit too complicated to see how much things are as there are 8million different options per offering and the £0 are misleading and make me want to close the website and shop elsewhere I'm afraid.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

For me it's a bit too complicated to see how much things are as there are 8million different options per offering and the £0 are misleading and make me want to close the website and shop elsewhere I'm afraid.

 

Spoken with our Dev on the £0 thing. Fix coming for that tomorrow. As I mentioned it's to do with the product having multiple Chassis options and therefore not being able to auto select one from the start.

 

As for the huge list, I agree there could be more clarity on some of the sections (particularly HDDs and RAM), there are a phenomenal amount of different components that are essentially the same but have to be listed on seperate item lines due to one part number or another.

 

We're looking at limiting this by saving the low qty items for our eBay listings and eventually removing them from the web view.

 

The aim is to give you the greatest flexibility in terms of your desired specification whilst giving an honest view of the inventory position of each component as you build your dream machine