>
>On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Tom wrote:
> I disagree. SCSI advantages:
>
>- Higher drive quality. EIDE drives are built cheap, just because that is
>what the market buys. Compare the listed MTBF for a Maxtor Diamond MAX to
>the list MTBF for a Seagate Barracuda 4LP/XL. In fact, it doesn't seem
>that Maxtor publishes MTBF figures...
>
Instead of comparing Maxtor, a company that has no SCSI product, to
Seagate why not compare Seagate to Seagate?
Take a good look at these example specs:
Seagate SCSI: http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/st39140w.shtml
versus
Seagate Ultra ATA: http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/st39140a.shtml
These drives are virtually identical other than their interface to
the world!
Although I don't know for sure, it's very likely that these drives are
built in the same factory on the same assembly line using the same part
bins.
Now, despite the fact that these drives are oh so similar, its interesting
to note that the MTBF of the SCSI drive is 800,000 hours
versus the Ultra ATA drives 400,000 hours. Do you really think these
numbers are significant? I would argue that they are significant from
a marketing standpoint only. If your selling the same thing to two different
markets where one market is willing to pay more than the other you better
have some story to tell them.
Ultra ATA is less expensive but not cheaper. It costs less for three obvious
reasons.
1) It has a simpler interface to the outside world.
2) It has a larger market.
3) It has a more competitive market with respect to price.
Steve.
