cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) (09/13/89)
In article <780049@hpvcfs1.HP.COM> stevem@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Steve Miller) writes: > >Another Jasmine data point. I recommended a Jasmine 70 Meg hard disk for >my brother about 1 1/2 years ago. He bought one then and it died two weeks >ago. [ ... ] >Now, I have another friend that wants to buy an inexpensive 20-40 Meg external ^^^^^^^^^^^ >hard disk and I don't know what to recommend. Is there any lower cost ^^^^^^^^^^ >hard-disk vendor that's had a good track record? Does this approach not seem just a trace short-sighted? Every hard-disk posting seems to assume that price is the most important attribute of a drive. Price is to be considered before anything else. I think that is very foolish! Steve, how do you value your time, when you lose hours of it because of a failed drive? What is the value of your friend's time? What dollar figure do you put on aggravation of being put on hold? What is the value of your reputation as an advisor? There may be exceptions, but in a market as competitive as that for hard disks, a higher price will reflect a higher quality. The *proper* question to ask is, "What is the *most*reliable* 20-40 Meg disk my friend can buy?" Almost certainly the price increment will be in the small hundreds, *easily* justified in savings of time and peace of mind. /////// / David Cortesi {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!cortesi ////// // /////////////////////////////////// //// / /// Informix Software // // /// / //// 4100 Bohannon Drive // (aphorism goes here) // // / ///// Menlo Park, CA 94025 // // / //////// (415) 926-6300 ///////////////////////////////////
news@tank.uchicago.edu (NetNews) (09/13/89)
Summary: Price does not necessarily mean quality References: <780049@hpvcfs1.HP.COM> <2330@infmx.UUCP> Reply-To: c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu (Walter C3arlip) Followup-To: /dev/null Distribution: na Organization: Dept. of Mathematics, Univ. of Chicago From: c3ar@daisy.uchicago.edu (Walter C3arlip) Path: daisy!c3ar Warning: Flame ON In article <2330@infmx.UUCP> cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes: >In article <780049@hpvcfs1.HP.COM> stevem@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Steve Miller) writes: >>I have another friend that wants to buy an inexpensive 20-40 Meg external >>hard disk and I don't know what to recommend. Is there any lower cost >>hard-disk vendor that's had a good track record? > >Does this approach not seem just a trace short-sighted? >Every hard-disk posting seems to assume that price is the most important >attribute of a drive. Price is to be considered before anything else. >I think that is very foolish! > >There may be exceptions, but in a market as competitive as that for >hard disks, a higher price will reflect a higher quality. I could not let this pass without defending Steve's posting: Steve explicitly asked for hard-disk vendors with a *good track record*. This is a completely reasonable question to pose to the net. It is definitely not true that a higher price reflects higher quality: in fact higher price is much more likely to reflect greater brand name recognition. It would be very easy to give numerous examples of this phenomenon (e.g., IBM manufactured pcs versus some of the IBM clones), but lets stick to disk drives. Many of the available disk drives use identical drive mechanisms--the differences lying in software, packaging, and support. When I purchased my external drive (a generic box with Quantum 40Mb mechanism) I did a lot of comparison shopping. The drive I bought came in a sturdy well-designed box with all the features of better known "brand-name" drives, but cost hundreds of dollars less than better known drives with the same Quantum 40. I heard from NET postings that the company I used has an excellent track record with respect to repairs, and the drive came with an unusually long warranty and excellent software. Price and quality simply do not correlate. Recently, I have also been looking into removable cartridge drives. Again, these drives all use the same cartridge mechanisms and the differences are all in packaging, software, and support. None-the-less, prices range from $850.00 to $1799.00 for a single cartridge drive. The general trend is for the better known companies, i.e., the ones that advertise more, to charge more for their drives. I don't believe the price gives any indication of quality in this situation either. Flame OFF --Walter _____________________________________________________________________________ Walter C3arlip c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu (the "3" is silent) c3ar%zaphod@UCHIMVS1.bitnet _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ Walter C3arlip c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu (the "3" is silent) c3ar%zaphod@UCHIMVS1.bitnet _____________________________________________________________________________
ralph@lzfme.att.com (Ralph Brandi) (09/13/89)
In article <2330@infmx.UUCP> cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes: >Does this approach not seem just a trace short-sighted? >Every hard-disk posting seems to assume that price is the most important >attribute of a drive. Price is to be considered before anything else. >I think that is very foolish! Steve, how do you value your time, when >There may be exceptions, but in a market as competitive as that for >hard disks, a higher price will reflect a higher quality. The *proper* >question to ask is, "What is the *most*reliable* 20-40 Meg disk my >friend can buy?" Almost certainly the price increment will be in the >small hundreds, *easily* justified in savings of time and peace of mind. Actually, the proper question is "what drive provides the most appropriate price/reliability ratio for my situation." If you're a programmer whose livlihood depends on the reliability of your hard drive, then reliability would be *the* paramount consideration. For a homeowner with a mortgage, a spouse who is pretty tired of sinking "just a little more money" into the never-ending black hole in the study (OK, so it's really gray or platinum....), or a college student who makes $5000 a year, price may very well be *the* paramount consideration. Many people fall somewhere between, and try to balance the two. Hell, I would have loved to get a Mercedes Benz, but I just couldn't make it. But I *could* afford this nice little Toyota over here.... -- Ralph Brandi [most gateways in the known universe]!att!lzfme!ralph Work flows toward the competent until they are submerged.
ar4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Piper Keairnes) (09/14/89)
> >There may be exceptions, but in a market as competitive as that for >hard disks, a higher price will reflect a higher quality. The *proper* >question to ask is, "What is the *most*reliable* 20-40 Meg disk my >friend can buy?" Almost certainly the price increment will be in the >small hundreds, *easily* justified in savings of time and peace of mind. > >/////// / David Cortesi {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!cortesi David, for many people in the world, cost is the most important matter regardless of what their needs are. Myself? I purchased a Mac SE with two floppy drives nearly 1.5 years ago. I then purchased my 40 meg Hard Drive from a mail order company (to save a few hundred bucks off what Apple could offer). The price was $671 after taxes and so forth.... and was/still is one of the most reliable drives on the market I believe... Quantum 40... I bought the drive because it had the lowest price offered... but still took into account the reliability (50,000 MTBF). As far as prices to quality relationships are concerned... it all depends upon the company that is doing the reselling.... many of the products are exactly the same.... just have a different case and label on them! -- Piper Keairnes (ar4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu)
osmigo@ut-emx.UUCP (09/14/89)
[David Cortesi says the right question is, "what is the MOST RELIABLE HD?"] Well, jeez, anybody want to answer that? Let's put it this way: suppose your LIFE depended on your hard disk functioning properly. If the hard disk fails, you DIE! Ok, what off-the-shelf, standard-brand hard disk would you choose? Ron Morgan osmigo@emx.utexas.edu
straka@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (richard.j.straka) (09/14/89)
In article <18361@ut-emx.UUCP> osmigo@emx.UUCP (Ron Morgan) writes: >[David Cortesi says the right question is, "what is the MOST RELIABLE HD?"] > >Well, jeez, anybody want to answer that? Let's put it this way: suppose >your LIFE depended on your hard disk functioning properly. If the hard >disk fails, you DIE! Ok, what off-the-shelf, standard-brand hard disk >would you choose? I think we are all suffering from a case of anecdotal evidence covering up the bigger picture, here. If I were to answer the above question, I would inevitably pick the name of some manufacturee that I have heard very LITTLE about. We have all heard bad things about the major (read: financially stable (sometimes), widely selling) manufacturers. I would like to suggest that we need some UNBIASED statistics gathering. You know, like "if your telephone number ends with the number 4, reply to this survey", with the survey having greppable keywording for automated collection, ... I don't have the time available to bite on administering any kind of survey right now, but I'm sure somebody does. BTW, I believe that the above question is valid, but I think we may mislead ourselves if we listen to the raw answers. On the other hand, I'm sure a lot of people still avoid DC-10s when they fly! -- Rich Straka att!ihlpf!straka MSDOS: All the wonderfully arcane syntax of UNIX(R), but without the power.
rock%warp@Sun.COM (Bill Petro) (09/15/89)
cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes: >In article <780049@hpvcfs1.HP.COM> stevem@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Steve Miller) writes: >> >>Another Jasmine data point. I recommended a Jasmine 70 Meg hard disk for >>my brother about 1 1/2 years ago. He bought one then and it died two weeks >>ago. [ ... ] >>Now, I have another friend that wants to buy an inexpensive 20-40 Meg external > ^^^^^^^^^^^ >>hard disk and I don't know what to recommend. Is there any lower cost > ^^^^^^^^^^ >>hard-disk vendor that's had a good track record? I have an inexpensive solution! I am sellig my 20 MB DataFrame. It is fast, reliable, and very quiet (it has no fan, it cools by convection). Send me email if you're interested. Bill Petro {decwrl,hplabs,ucbvax}!sun!Eng!rock "UNIX for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 19:12
gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (09/15/89)
I am a firm believer that some drive manufacturers produce inferior disk drive-units. A close friend of mine, a mechanical engineer at Seagate, told me (two years ago) that Seagate was using very questionable practices on its high-density drive line. They were taking drives that fail the performance / reliability tests, and swapping parts between the failing drives until they barely met spec, and then shipping them out as high-quality drives. This is something to do with mature technology (10Mb, 20Mb) drives, but not technology that is pushing limits, like the high-density drives. In other words, "Two wrongs make a right!" Maybe Seagate has changed this practice by now. They have always had the lowest-cost drives in the industry, and you have to wonder, why is the price so low? I went for a Quantum-80 (internal) drive, because Quantum has ALWAYS specialized in high-density (30+Mb) (14", 8", 5", 3.5", ...) drives, and is one of the oldest manufacturers in silicon valley. I had personal experience with 8" Quantum drives on Xerox 8010 workstations. I bought mine from CMS, which means they wrote the ROM software for it, and provided a floppy disk of software. I would also recommend CDC, since they are one of the oldest 3rd-party disk-drive makers ANYWHERE. For a while, they were the biggest and most successful makers of mainframe disk drives. This track record is something to consider. I'm not saying Quantum or CDC drives don't break, but I believe some other manufacturers (Seagate) might give their customers more headaches, on average. Occasionally, an end-unit manufacturer screws up the driver software. This happened a while back with the disk cache in Cirrus drives. The cache was not writing through regularly, and if your mac crashed you would lose a lot of work. I believe this problem has been corrected. Don't buy solely on price. Buy based on drive-unit manufacturer. Buy based on the end-unit manufacturer. Buy based on access speed. Look at price, but don't make it your primary consideration!!!!!
c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU (Alex Lau) (09/15/89)
In article <5379@tank.uchicago.edu> news@tank.uchicago.edu (NetNews) writes: >Recently, I have also been looking into removable cartridge drives. Again, >these drives all use the same cartridge mechanisms and the differences are >all in packaging, software, and support. None-the-less, prices range from >$850.00 to $1799.00 for a single cartridge drive. The general trend is for >the better known companies, i.e., the ones that advertise more, to charge >more for their drives. I don't believe the price gives any indication of >quality in this situation either. > >--Walter >_____________________________________________________________________________ >Walter C3arlip c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu >(the "3" is silent) c3ar%zaphod@UCHIMVS1.bitnet >_____________________________________________________________________________ Walter, There was a discussion of this at the BMUG meeting tonight. What came out of it was that there are a lot of ways to affect price, other than marketing/advertisement costs. Ehman, for instance, only does direct sales and doesn't go through traditional distribution channels, so you would expect them to have lower-cost drives. However, they use a VERY inexpensive (bordering on cheap) power supply and fan for their Syquest-mechanism drives, cheapest of all the major manufacturers. Also, they regularly place full-page ads in the monthly Mac mags, which cost on the order of about $14K each month. You tell me where Ehman's money is going. Not to saving the consumer money in the long run, IMHO. --- Alex
cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) (09/16/89)
>> [ ...at some length I said... ] The *proper* >>question to ask is, "What is the *most*reliable* 20-40 Meg disk my >>friend can buy?" [...as opposed to "what is the cheapest"...] > [ ...then ar4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Piper Keairnes) said...] > David, for many people in the world, cost is the most important >matter regardless of what their needs are. I assert that an *unreliable* hard drive can never be economical at *any* price. The agony tales told in this forum testify to that. See also the recent posting by John Heckendorn of BMUG, where he says: > In the sense that a hard disk is the heart of a computer, you're best > off with the best one available. Besides, over the life span of most > drives (4 - 5 years) the difference in cost amortizes to something > much less considerable than a comparison of list prices would lead you > to believe. John, I don't know you but I like your style... > [Piper goes on...] As far as prices to quality relationships are concerned > it all depends upon the company that is doing the reselling.... many of the > products are exactly the same.... just have a different case and label... True, the drive mechanisms come from very few factories. However, the cases, the power supplies, the wiring, the cables and connectors, and the training and supervision given the assemblers ... all these are usually different and can have an effect on reliability. Also, the vendors' support policies differ widely. Usable tech support and liberal return policies are not cheap! In all these factors, "better" costs the vendor money and has to be reflected in the price. Granted, there are bargains if you have the knowhow, time and luck to find them. But the market is so price-competitive, there are so many vendors chasing buyers who are so price-concious, that the correlation of price to quality has to be fairly close. (But let me quickly qualify that w.r.t. Apple: they have something approaching a captive market for internal hard drives, and the high price they charge does not have to reflect quality better than other vendors. It certainly doesn't reflect the cost of a better warrantee!) /////// / David Cortesi {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!cortesi ////// // /////////////////////////////////// //// / /// Informix Software // // /// / //// 4100 Bohannon Drive // (aphorism goes here) // // / ///// Menlo Park, CA 94025 // // / //////// (415) 926-6300 ///////////////////////////////////