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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    South Jersey
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    20

    Inventory Organization

    How do you store & organize RAM, hard drives, and other spare parts at your data center?

    My predecessor was OK with using brown boxes of various sizes scattered everywhere (basically anything that was shipped the box was re-used for storing things). It's driving me nuts, I'm very anal about having a place for everything and having everything in its place, but I need some advice on what to use/ask for. I'm going to ask my boss to order some AkroBins for RAM (unless somebody has a better solution), but I can't find anything I like for hard drives. With the last few shipments of hard drives he kept the styrofoam containers the drives shipped in but there are plenty of drives just stacked on a rack which I do not like.

  2. #2
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    Jul 2008
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    New Zealand
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    I'd also be interested in what others are currently using for storage

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Indiana, USA
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    937
    I realize this is an older thread, however I too am interested in people sharing their thoughts and methods! The Akro Bins look pretty nice, I believe I've seen those used before.
    Jason Canady • Unlimited Net, LLC
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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    133
    +1 Akro Bins. Got the idea wandering around my data center and looking at how other people handle small parts. I got these:

    http://www.bettymills.com/shop/produ...ntent=Facility

    I set them them up in three stacks of 8 to hold power cables, rack parts, hard drives and such.
    Last edited by dmst; 09-14-2011 at 02:28 PM. Reason: link showed wrong product

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Chicago, IL USA
    Posts
    1,430
    Hello JCurry,

    It really depends on how much room you have to work with. Our build room is very large. We use varying sizes of yellow plastic tubs. Each is marked with what is in it. These are in turn stored on shelves. This is great for hard drives, cables, cards, processors, ram, etc.

    Cases and chasis's are stored directly on the shelving units.

    Everything, and I mean everything, is inventoried in a program he coded for ourselves. Every piece is barcoded.

    Good luck!
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
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    Denver, CO
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    3,302
    Quote Originally Posted by ByteMaster View Post
    Everything, and I mean everything, is inventoried in a program he coded for ourselves. Every piece is barcoded.

    Good luck!
    Out of curiosity, do you know what is used for web app <> barcode integration?
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
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    Indiana, USA
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jay Suds View Post
    Out of curiosity, do you know what is used for web app <> barcode integration?
    Jay,

    Barcode readers generally work just like a keyboard would. So you could use JavaScript to advance to another field based on the length of text entered (if you know what to expect) or based on a timeout of inactivity in the input field.
    Jason Canady • Unlimited Net, LLC
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Troy, NY
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    34
    Quote Originally Posted by ByteMaster View Post
    Hello JCurry,

    Everything, and I mean everything, is inventoried in a program he coded for ourselves. Every piece is barcoded.
    We've looked into barcode integrations for inventory support, but we found that some folks arnt too excited about labeling every stick of RAM, CPU, etc.

    Further, it seemed to break down when a company had a combination of gear that they built themselves (everything inventoried when received) vs pre-built servers (ie - Dell gear that gets later gets RAM moved around).

    Did you guys have adoption pains with your onsite staff, or does barcoding day coincide with pizza and refreshment day?
    Matt Toback .:|:. Ubersmith
    Infrastructure Automation, Billing, & Helpdesk Software
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    South Jersey
    Posts
    20
    I ended up going with AkroBins a few months ago. For hard drives we're still using the 20 slot foam containers they ship in since the cases I found for them are far too expensive.

    I would love to have a nice inventory system, but - even if we ever had the support necessary to make that happen - this is a real problem:

    Quote Originally Posted by ubersmith View Post
    Further, it seemed to break down when a company had a combination of gear that they built themselves (everything inventoried when received) vs pre-built servers (ie - Dell gear that gets later gets RAM moved around).
    Not to mention general laziness. Every day I find servers that don't match the hardware descriptions in our database because somebody was too lazy to update the record.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    L.A., CA
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    3,710
    Quote Originally Posted by ubersmith View Post
    We've looked into barcode integrations for inventory support, but we found that some folks arnt too excited about labeling every stick of RAM, CPU, etc.

    Further, it seemed to break down when a company had a combination of gear that they built themselves (everything inventoried when received) vs pre-built servers (ie - Dell gear that gets later gets RAM moved around).

    Did you guys have adoption pains with your onsite staff, or does barcoding day coincide with pizza and refreshment day?
    You should be able to add a machine as a "pre-built" which has a base configuration with individual amounts of each part installed minus the barcode/serial# then when (if) any parts ever come out they then get input into inventory via the barcode/serial#.
    Any single parts that get added for an upgrade should already be in inventory and will be listed as installed in the machine.
    This takes care of people who don't want to inventory all parts in a pre-built server, but also allows those who DO want to inventory single parts in a pre-built.

    Is this going to be happening soon? We already have a custom coded inventory system that operates this way, and are re-making it in the next few weeks, but if Uber does it, then whats the point in us doing it all over again...
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