Re: iSeries Disk Pricing

The AIX disks are not that much cheaper, if at all. I just paid IBM over $1200 
for
18g drives in a  B50 AIX box.

-Paul


----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Bolhuis" <lbolhuis@arbsol.com>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 6:23 AM
Subject: Re: iSeries Disk Pricing


> Andy,
>
>    IMHO You are spot on. Of all my customers I can't even think of 2 that
> use 17G drives for the exact reason you specify - Arm Count.  We deal almost
> exclusively in the 270-820 space and those machines just don't normally
> house databases large enough to be able to utilize 17G drives.  I was very
> sorry to see that IBM ignored the 8G units in this pricing action. If you
> consider that the 8G drives ALSO require twice the cage space, twice the
> controllers, and double the maintenance dollars for the same capacity they
> are a much MORE than double the cost of 17G units.  This all makes it more
> difficult to compete against the average Wintel and Lintel solutions because
> there disks are SOO much cheaper.
>
>    My fear at the end of the year when 8G units go away is that we'll sell a
> customer a system with enough arms that the capacity yield will have them
> set for years! This may even hamper the ability to sell upgrades.
>
>    My .02
>
>      - Larry
>
> Andy Nolen-Parkhouse wrote:
>
> > Friends,
> >
> > While it is good news that IBM is significantly reducing the price of
> > their disk drives, for many workloads there may well be no change.  This
> > announcement prices the 17 GB drives at exactly the old price of the 8
> > GB drives ($1,400).  For those who require raw capacity, this represents
> > a significant savings.
> >
> > For those of us who have routinely sized DB2-based transaction systems,
> > frequently we end up configuring excess storage capacity in order to
> > obtain an appropriate number of disk arms to ensure adequate
> > performance.  This general rule applied for me in most systems using 8
> > GB drives.  I needed the arms more than the capacity.  Because the 17 GB
> > drives seem to have roughly the same rotational speed and seek times as
> > the 8 GB drives, it stands to reason that a number of systems will
> > require exactly the same number of drives at exactly the same price.
> > There will be a significant increase in the amount of excess storage
> > using the 17 GB drives, but the end result could well be no cost
> > reduction.
> >
> > I'd welcome comment on this, but I think my reasoning is sound.  Some
> > systems would be better served by reducing the cost of 8 GB drives
> > rather than discontinuing them.
> >
> > I would prefer to be wrong because I'm trying to focus on the good news
> > of the announcement, and there is a lot.
>
> --
> Larry Bolhuis           | IBM Certified Solutions Expert
> Vice President          |     iSeries Technology V5 R1
> Arbor Solutions, Inc.   |     e-business for AS/400 V4 R2
> (616) 451-2500          | IBM Certified Specialist  AS/400
> (616) 451-2571 -fax     |     RPG IV Developer
> lbolhuis@arbsol.com     |     System Administrator for OS/400 V4 R4
> www.arbsol.com          |     Professional Network Administrator
>                          |       Network/Multiple Systems
>                          |     Client Access
>
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