I know what the vendors say, but for simple RAID1 setups I've actually found higher end desktop hard drives + Linux Software RAID ridiculously more reliable (& fast/faster) than enterprise drives with a hardware RAID card - this is with experience with a few hundred small business servers over the last 8 years or so. Yes, I know the vendors say you shouldn't run these 24/7, and I almost always opt for the "enterprise" solution in non-RAID1 environments (or when running Windows / hypervisors), but my failure rate with desktop drives running in RAID1 is tiny as hell (<1%). I can't even remember the last time a desktop drive failed on me. Replacing enterprise drives in higher end servers seems a considerably more common thing I end up doing. The biggest thing that tends to kill drives, no matter what "grade" they are, is heat - a fan covering a larger RAID5/6/10 array packs up and it's all over. Regarding enterprise drives, as far as I'm aware most are mechanically identical to their desktop counterparts. I can understand there are firmware optimizations which make them more suitable for typical access patterns a server will perform, and therefore a better choice in high load environments, but if desktop drives were manufactured to be intentionally less reliable than we'd be seeing a hell of a lot more failures with desktop drives. People leaving their desktops on 24/7 is very common, and don't forget how much a typical spyware/virus-ridden Windows machine will thrash the hard drive. R ----- Original Message ----- On Sun, 12 Feb 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
On 12/02/2012 10:03 AM, James Harper wrote:
It was covered, but not clearly. The rights and obligations for suppliers and consumers are now much more clearly spelled out. They even have a completely different section for resolution of faults in goods obtained before 1/1/11.
I don't disagree, but it makes it much less likely that retailers can support such claims without manufacturer support. Lots of commodity items only have a very, very small markup and any returns, even during warranty periods, wipe out any margin made on the original sale. Extending the obligations beyond manufacture warranty period on to retailers and there is almost certainly going to be losses on too many sales.
So retailers just have to increase the prices a bit, and maybe think twice about selling gear that has little warranty support from the supplyer. One of the things about the warranty is that it sends a signal to the customer about what the manufacturer thinks of the quality of the goods. If the manufacturer doesn't think it will last then maybe it's not worth buying or retailing.
What this will mean is that we'll all have to pay much more for this commodity hardware as the number of sellers will diminish significantly and competition will fail to deliver lower pricing -- each retailer *must* sell at a premium to cover this obligation. I guess more and more buyers will buy from the US and import the goods themselves rather than pay such inflated prices due to these conditions.
If the hardware in question is so unreliable that paying for warranty replacements would force the prices up a lot then it's probably better for the customer to pay more and get the warranty which they are likely to need. Also as the price goes up it makes other products more appealing, so maybe a better quality product will become cheaper when the cost of replacing rubbish products is taken into account. If the rubbish products include things which can cause data loss then forcing them from the market is a service.
Myself, well I have access to "wholesale" pricing from a number of avenues, but can often find retail pricing that is lower than such wholesale pricing, sometimes much, much lower! Again, that makes it impossible to be a retailer of such items.
No, that makes it impossible to be a retailer unless you have the relationship with the vendor that gives you the good prices. You then have to ask why the vendor is being an ass and giving such unfair advantage to your competitors. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/ _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main