RE: iSeries Disk Pricing

I'm a little backlogged on reading messages.  I wanted to agree on the need
for 8GB drives.  It would be very costly for us to go to 17GB drives because
we are running RAID and we would have to buy a minimum of 4 just to add more
capacity.  Normally, we purchase one drive per year (unless it is time for a
processor upgrade).

Diana Hicks
Town of Jupiter
dianah@jupiter.fl.us <mailto:dianah@jupiter.fl.us>

IBM Certified Specialist-AS/400 RPG IV Programmer
IBM Certified Specialist-AS/400 Systems Administrator

        --__--__--

        From: "Andy Nolen-Parkhouse" <aparkhouse@attbi.com>
        To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
        Subject: RE: iSeries Disk Pricing
        Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 06:35:09 -0400
        Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com

        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.

        Regards,
        Andy Nolen-Parkhouse







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