RE: Help me Justify iSeries

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not sure about this.  Seriously, I'm the last person to argue using
Wintel instead of iSeries, but my wife's machine has run non-stop since
I loaded it.  I reboot it every three or four days because Windows leaks
memory like a sieve, but the machine is never off.

Personally, I think RAID is only for transaction data -- things that
change.  You don't need RAID or mirroring if the data is fairly static,
you just need a good backup.  In this case, you can back up the PC to
the WD network drive, and still have a 300GB solution for well under
$1000.  PC drive crashes, switch to the network drive and put a new
drive in the PC.  If you're ultra-paranoid, buy a second network drive,
and you're still at about $1100.

Or, if you insist on RAID, Electronix sells a 360GB RAID5 tower for
about $2000 (you can get 1TB for about $3000, or 6TB for $10K).
www.raidweb.com

Joe


> From: JOberholtzer@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> While I can accept Joe's points regarding the pricing of equipment,
keep
> in
> mind the disk drive on that user class PC is not built for 24/hr/365
day
> spin time.  It is engineered to only spin for 8 hours/day 5 days a
week,
> because lets face it , that is good enough for most PCs.    Are the
> documents you are going to be storing in a position to be recovered
easily
> if that non-raid, non-mirrored drive fails?  What about the cost of
> recovery and replacement equipment, cheezed off users and bosses, etc.