How many boxes?

Set up an IBM box today. Nothing special about that. It took them 5 boxes, some boxes inside other boxes, to send us a full machine. Oh, wait, we still have no hard drive. I set it up on a USB drive. Hoping the drive is just on the way. I don't get it. My office looks like a UPS truck hit it, all for one system.

The RAM was ordered separately. That took two boxes. The CPU took one. The DVD drive took two boxes, a reasonable sized box in a huge box. Oh, wait. The DVD drive itself was in a separate box. Those boxes were for the mounting bracket and a changed cowling.

The way I figure it, the items all came from China. They then had to be warehoused for a bit and then reboxed and sent to us. They don't have time to repackage the items so they just pack everything in a bigger box. Since every single item comes from a different warehouse each item gets reboxed.

On a side not, it took me nearly an hour to figure out how to get the DVD drive mounted and in it's proper place. Between the metal bracket, the little spring thing they called a retention bracket and the cable, It was crazy.

All in all, it has been successful. Still no drive. Hopefully I can image it over later. It feels funny having set up my first real live IBM server. There is something about an IBM that says professional or "the real deal". Not sure that still makes sense, but there it is.