207 MB Drives in SS1(+)'s

[frist at ccu.umanitoba.ca]

In article <2731 at brchh104.bnr.ca> brendan at cs.widener.edu (Brendan Kehoe) writes:

>In <2632 at brchh104.bnr.ca>, rhoward at msd.gatech.edu writes:
>>[[Ed's Note: Two disks internally is the max, and I think 207Mbyte is the
>>largest Sun sells for internal expansion - of course, you can always add
>>external SCSI drives (669 Mbyte from Sun) to get lots of space. -bdg]]
>
>One thing I've never grasped .. how Sun can charge $5000 for those, when
>you can get multiple *gigabytes* for that much money from third-party
>vendors.

You forgot to mention that when you buy the same disk drive from a third
party vendor that Sun installs with their system, you get a warranty. When
you buy it from Sun, you get (for all practical purposes) NO warranty, but
rather, the _opportunity_ to purchase a service contract. Typically, these
service contracts are not even close to being cost effective. For a
single-user, standalone workstation, they are so expensive as to be out of
the question, unless you have  wads of money stuffed in your desk and
filecabinet. I should add,  in all fairness, that service contracts for
most equipment items are seldom cost effective.  

I might also mention the cost of repairs, and the turnaround time. Again,
SUN will be far more expensive, with a much longer turnaround time, than a
third party service. 

Brian Fristensky               
frist at ccu.umanitoba.ca      
Office phone:   204-474-6085 
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