[KLUG Members] Re: New machine - Linux hardware?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

>>Just look at the warranty.  My four Fujitsu drives all have a
>>***5 YEAR*** guarantee.  Nobody else has ever offered something
>>like that.
>You'll never use the guarantee, of course.  

True.

>Drive prices fall so fast
>that, 5 years later, it'll be cheaper to buy a new drive of the same
>specs than to pay the shipping, 

That is already true.

>and go through the hassle, to return
>your old one.  That is, if you'll even be able to find such a small,
>outdated drive.

Manufacturers always seem to have some.  I've had to swap drives on lousy RAID
controllers that required the new drive to be the same (roughly) as the original.
 
>The limit's typically around 2 years, actually... 

Or less.  But many corporate IT departments would pursue the warranty,  it just
works that way.

>two years ago I
>would have considered 9 GB to be a nice medium capacity hard drive
>for a typical user's PC.  As of right now, Pricewatch.com doesn't
>list any IDE drives smaller than 20 GB, and the price difference
>from 20 to 30 GB is nine bucks.

True, but presence and low price on the market doesn't indicate a NEED for 30GB.
 It seems a little crazy to me (although in my closet I have 54G of RAID-ed
capacity spinning inside external cabinets, so maybe I'm a hypocrite).  

>Also, re backup, at this point the best backup solution for most
>consumer-level stuff is just to buy a second hard drive. 

Agree.

>With 60 GB IDE drives starting under $150, you can't lose.  

Especially if you put that drive in a removeable tray.  If you leave it spinning
in the same machine as it's partner I question it's utility as a backup.

>Decent tape drives
>with a fraction of the capacity still start around $300 and involve

It depends on the value of your work/data.  You don't need to backup the entire
machine,  just what is important.   I use a 2Gb DAT drive.  In that whole vast
system I really have only about ~1.5Gb I really care about, and that number
grows slowly.  I suspect that this is true for most people.  And if I lost that
1.5Gb it would represent years of work.  Used/Refurbished DAT drivers are VERY
cheap and very reliable, the tapes cost less than $6.  Is your data worth more
than $100 to you?  If so, I don't understand not owning a tape drive.

>swapping tape after flaky tape.  Backing up to a hard drive is fast,
>automatic, and verification is easy.

But you get no cycle.  If you backup before you realize you deleted that
file.... DOHHHHH!!!!

Systems and Network Administrator
Morrison Industries
1825 Monroe Ave NW.
Grand Rapids, MI. 49505