Disk I/O as a bottleneck?

[geoffrey mendelson]

On
> The rated MTBF of my specific drive is 2 million hours. If I still  
> know my math, that's some 228 years....


Which is meaningless. The life expectency of a drive is closer to the  
length of the warranty period. Warranties are decided based upon  
projected return rates. The manufacturers want no more than a 5%  
return rate, some less such as 2% or 3%. Once they expect more to come  
back, they no longer provide a warranty.

So if they expect that 2% will come back in the first 3 years. They  
give you a 3 year warranty. These warranties only apply to retail  
drives. OEM drives generally are sold without a warranty at all.

The OEM provides a warranty for the entire system, and negotiates a  
lower price with the understanding that they will "eat" any returns in  
exchange.

That's even starting to affect computers, I saw in Friday's Yediot a  
computer sold for 15% less if you took it with a one year warranty  
instead of a three year one. Since it was a low end computer, possibly  
obsolete in a year or two, it may have been worth it.

On the other hand my son is "chomping at the bit" for the one year  
warranty to expire on his computer so he can talk all of his relatives  
into chipping in and buying him a new video card. Last year's high end  
video card from last year is not fast enough now. :-)

I on the other hand was recently given a five year old computer, which  
due to memory restrictions and a lousy BIOS will be permanently stuck  
on Windows XP. A new hard drive, a fresh install of Linux, and I'm  
happy. I/O is absymal, but the CPU is fast.

Geoff.



-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.