[ale] [semi OT] encouraging and discouraging HDD and SSD observations

[Greg Clifton]

As a guy who has made my living in computer hardware since 1989, I'm with
MT on this subject. It's not really all that much different than automobile
warranties. How many of us drive our cars for MANY years after the
manufacturer's warranty expires. It is different, however, in that computer
hardware pretty much continually gets cheaper. it is absurd to expect
manufacturers to sell a 4TB hard drive for sub $200 and warranty it for 5
years. My folks bought one of the early IBM PC XT systems and the measly
5Meg drive cost an extra $1000. When you have margins like that you can
offer long warranties. But with prices as low as they are today, just buy
extra drives and "get over it." Overall, both computer hardware and
automobiles are FAR more reliable than they were 20 years ago. Check out
the MTBF ratings on modern hard drives. Most last well beyond their
warranty periods, but some do fail within the warranty and while as a group
all are better, there are those few that fail. If you happen to have one of
the "outliers" it sucks to be you, but only goes to show that statistics
are of little use for the individual, only the aggregate.

On the subject of cars, if you ever listen to Sam Garage (Talk 920 am
11:00-Noon on Saturdays) he regularly tells folks NOT to run the gas tank
empty because modern cars have in-tank fuel pumps that are cooled by the
gasoline in the tank. If you make a habit of "running on empty..." the pump
isn't adequately cooled which cab cause premature failure. Ron, you might
pass that tip along to your Dad FWIW.

On the humidifier, Ron,  we all know that electronics are sensitive to over
voltage and shouldn't necessarily assume that the failure was because of
crappy manufacturing without ruling out any near by lightning strikes in
the past year. The old model most likely didn't have electronics and was
less susceptible. But I have seen lightening do some crazy things to all
sorts of electronics.


On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Brian MacLeod <nym.bnm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA256
>>
>> To some folks chagrin, I'm about to continue this subject, but it's
>> because I feel this is now a point on which I can hopefully shed some
>> light on why buying one hard drive at a time is a bad idea, and
>> encourage those in the community to think a little farther ahead to
>> save time and money.
>>
>> Most of that commentary is at the end, so if you'd like to skip to
>> that and avoid my rebuttals, go ahead.
>>
>>
> Good stuff, Brian. I've used similar arguments to get cheapskates to buy
> decent gear instead of the least expensive walmart crap. My time has value.
> If I'm doing admin at home it's work at the same rate as I charge for my
> employment. Of course I don't pay myself. But it does come out of _MY_ time
> and that is far more valuable to me than work pay rate.
>
> No one gets to their death bed and says "I wish I had spent more time at
> work.".
>
>
> Drive warranty is based on the tested engineering capability of the drive.
> Think of the drive warranty as the point at which the manufacturer expects
> to begin to see returns.  So a 1 -3 year drive is crap. It has a likelihood
> of failure in the timeframe of the non-failure of the enterprise drives. So
> I get a 5 drive pile using at least 2 different makers and build a RAID10
> with 1 drive hot spare. ANY drive issue is cause for a new drive. The hot
> spare takes over and I replace the drive with the error and have a new hot
> spare. 5 year drives running 24x7 for 8 years with really decent cooling.
> I'm close to an array upgrade. Will do the same thing again with bigger
> drives and add an extra fan to make a push-pull cooling setup for the
> drives.
>
> Oh. I use different makers in the the mirrors so a maker failure won't
> toast my array. Best money I EVER spent was the 10 tape carousel backup
> system and the time I spent learning how to use bacula.
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
>
> Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
> at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
> It won't fatten the dog.
> - Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>
>
> *http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
> <http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/>*
>
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