Re: [tlug] HDD Reliability

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Josh" == Josh Glover <tlug@example.com> writes:

    Josh> Quoth Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon

    >> And - folks in TLUG - this is one of the things that infuriates
    >> me about the big bloody M - while those...  those... *******'s
    >> are raking in money hand over fist, the hardware manufacturers
    >> have been hurting.  There is definitely not a fair allocation
    >> of money flowing from consumers to the people who put
    >> computer's together.

    Josh> Microsoft has very little to do with this. As I am sure
    Josh> Dr. Turnbull can back up, thinner margins on hardware is in
    Josh> keeping with the economic Order of Things. The natural
    Josh> progression of everything, from an historical perspective,
    Josh> tends towards Ideas replacing Things as the most valuable
    Josh> commodity.

Nah, while Microsoft has nothing to do with the hardware
manufacturers' problems, its profits are purely a case of monopoly.
Has nothing to do with being higher in the value chain.  By IBM's own
design (yes, it was the IBM 360 that introduced plug compatibility to
the industry, and it took a lot of nerve for them to go the same route
with the PC), there's a lot of competition for their products.

As for the drives themselves, I dunno.  I looked at those drives a few
years ago---very attractive price/performance according to the
specs---but deliberately chose 5400rpm drives instead.  Maybe that's
why I got 3 years out of them instead of a few minutes, hey?  It _was_
bleading edge technology then, and I am not surprised that some blood
was lost.  So decide which is more risky: losing a bit of throughput,
or losing the whole drive?  Sometimes it _is_ the former, but it
wasn't for me.

The comparison to Intel is quite bogus, too.  IBM's hardware is
expensive to make, unit margins are thin, S/H is not cheap.  They
really need to sell those things to cover costs; RMAs really hurt
them.  Intel is like Microsoft: once the chip is in production, it's a
few dollars to make---FedEx is the main cost of replacement!
Substantially more expensive than burning disks, yes, but Intel's cost
structure is much closer to Microsoft's than to IBM's.

I'll admit, it looks like IBM deliberately covered up, including
internally.  But actually a lot of that stuff is explained by reading
too many of their own press clippings.  So ... I'll wait for the court
to decide.

The two URLs that were posted here earlier were interesting, but
really---a liar for hire and somebody who still thinks he has to
install what Microsoft offers?  I give them equal credibility with
IBM'S own press releases.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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              ask what your business can "do for" free software.