🚀 go-pugleaf

Henry Kwan <logic@best.com> wrote:
> Of course, I'm biased on the issue of disk storage since I work for a
> storage company and usually have around 500GB's of storage sitting around
> me at work.  :)  Seriously though, storage is obeying Moore's Law as well,
> every 18 months, the capacity of a given device is doubling for the same
> cost.  Seagate Barracuda 9's are state of the art now but by this time
> next year, Barracuda 18's will be available at the same price.  So why is
> Best skimping?

Actually, 9G drives have been the largest available discreet SCSI drives
for at least the last two years. Here's some prices from some moldy old
issues of MicroTimes - NCA's ads: 

Jul 94 - Seagate 9.0G ST410800 5.25" Int.	$4599
Nov 95 - Seagate 9.0G ST410800 5.25" Int.	$2249
Nov 96 - Seagate 9.1G ST19171  3.50" Int.	$2499 (now ultra scsi)

In this case, the formula was a rough halving of the price over eighteen
months (and a much smaller physical package).  

For some applications, 9G drives are a fine choice, since they can stream
lots of data uninterrupted. For ISP's, 9G drives are a poor choice - much
better to have a stack of 2G or 4G drives, as accesses can then occur
concurrently across multiple spindles. 

This does not alter the argument however: disk space is cheap - dirt
cheap.

--
Paul Theodoropoulos     admin@wco.com     VP, West Coast Online, Inc.