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

[Bryan J. Smith]

Jamie McCarthy wrote:
> You'll never use the guarantee, of course.  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, 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 outdated drive.

But if you have a RAID array, having the same performance and size
is very crucial, even 3-4 years down the road.

> The limit's typically around 2 years, actually... 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.

Unfortunately, the "platter cost" v. the "rest of the drive" is the
issue.  Maxtor is trying to address it with their new 20GB value
drive.  It is a 40GB/platter drive, with one platter and only one
head.  The list is supposed to be $89, so it might be available for
as low as $50 in quantity.

> Also, re backup, at this point the best backup solution for most
> consumer-level stuff is just to buy a second hard drive.  With 60 GB
> IDE drives starting under $150, you can't lose.  Decent tape drives
> with a fraction of the capacity still start around $300 and involve
> swapping tape after flaky tape.  Backing up to a hard drive is fast,
> automatic, and verification is easy.

I semi-agree with you, but I think you fail to realize that there
are other variables involved.

1.  Portability/durability

Only tape or other removable media.  You might consider a removable
HD, but that is more fragile than most cartridges.

2.  Physical longevity

Optical is best, but certain magnetic tapes are also good (4/8mm --
but NOT QIC, which requires "retensioning").

3.  Standard longevity

Optical can be bad in this case.  CD is good, but doesn't have much
capacity.  DVD-RAM is seemingly the "industry standard" behind the
consortium and 5 vendors now, with a 4 year history, but Pioneer is
pushing for a new DVD-RW standard with a <$1K drive that has full
DVD-R and CD-RW capabilities with it.

4mm/DAT/DDS is nice, except there is no guarantee that hardware
compress is compatible between vendors.  Exabyte 8mm used to be the
longest running, backward readable (and writable in many cases) tape
standard, except that they are undergoing financial issues.  Sony's
AIT seems to be the "new 8mm standard."  There are some other linear
tape "standards" gaining ground, but the "shakedown cruise" is still
on-going.

And then there is even a 4th "standard," the software used to
backup.  But that is another story.  ;-PPP

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org   chat:thebs413
SmithConcepts, Inc.           http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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