[ 28 Aug 03 04:06, Roy J. Tellason wrote to Maurice Kinal ]

 RT> Well,  I hear that there are 10,000 rpm server-class SCSI drives out
 RT> there that are really something,  but I'm not necessarily looking for
 RT> something like that...  :-)

IDE are up to 10,000 rpm now (Seagate Raptor).  SCSI are up to 15,000.  You
probably don't want either since they both make quite a racket compared to
most current 7200rpm drives, and produce enough heat to require active
cooling (unless you live in the Arctic or somesuch).

I wouldn't worry about alleged performance advantages of SCSI either.  My
nine month old WD1200JB (120GB, 8MB buffer, ATA100):

/dev/hde:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.60 seconds =213.33 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.51 seconds = 42.38 MB/sec

She's fast enough for you old man :)

 RT> I saw some 40G drives selling for around the $100 price range just
 RT> yesterday,  or maybe slightly above that.  But I thought that 60-80G
 RT> drives were out there,  and even some nontrivially larger sizes?

I hope that's SCSI for US$100.  IDE are a lot cheaper.

30 GB Maxtor 7200 Diamondmax Plus 8     $103.00
40 GB Maxtor 7200 Diamondmax Plus 8     $111.00
60 GB Maxtor 7200 Diamondmax Plus 9     $129.00
80 GB Maxtor 7200 Diamondmax Plus 9     $139.00
120 GB Maxtor 7200 Diamondmax Plus 9    $179.00

80 GB Maxtor 7200 8m cache D/max 9+     $165.00
120 GB Maxtor 7200 8m cache D/max 9+    $199.00
160 GB Maxtor 7200 8m cache D/max 9+    $268.00
200 GB Maxtor 7200 8m cache D/max 9+    $372.00
250 GB Maxtor 7200 8m cache D/max 9+    $541.00

In Aussie money.  Take out the tax, import costs, exchange rate, etc. and
you should be able to get a 40 for not much more than US$pocket lint.

 RT> There's always a price break with this sort of stuff,  so much a gig
 RT> until you get up there into the larger sizes,  at which point the

It varies.  From the above, $/GB:

3.43, 2.775, 2.15, 1.7375, 1.4916

2.0625, 1.6583, 1.675, 1.86, 2.164

There's no profit in smaller drives, so they cost more per gig than you
would expect.  Don't go in thinking that you only need a 40GB drive and
ignore the rest.  Compare prices across the board and make sure you don't
get shafted.  You're in for at least $60, so what's $5 for another 10GB
(33% increase), for eg?

After you make your purchase, avoid looking at the prices ever again.  2
weeks after you buy, the same money will have got you twice the space.  So
save yourself the agony :)


-- Scott Little  [fidonet#3:712/848 / sysgod{at}sysgod.org]

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