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From: dillon@flea.best.net (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.sys.sgi.misc
Subject: Re: no such thing as a "general user community"
Date: 20 Mar 1997 11:19:50 -0800
Organization: BEST Internet Communications, Inc.
Lines: 65
Message-ID: <5gs2km$l34@flea.best.net>
References: <331BB7DD.28EC@net5.net> <5g9mfj$emd@news.ecn.bgu.edu> <01bc3089$6c85eba0$6330fa9e@org-qsar2.chem.msu.su> <333033A2.41C6@nova.sgi.com>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.sco.misc:36902 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:37385 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:6392 comp.sys.sgi.misc:29285
:In article <333033A2.41C6@nova.sgi.com>,
:Thomas H Jones II <ferric@nova.sgi.com> wrote:
:>Eugene Radchenko wrote:
:>> Ken Apa <gapa@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> wrote in article
:>> <5g9mfj$emd@news.ecn.bgu.edu>...
:>> > : Then there comes a choice of add-on hardware (like CD-ROMs, tapes,
:>> > : etc.). Here SGI will just ripp you off, for "compatable hardware".
:>
:>Depends on your wants. If you buy everything from one place, be it SGI,
:>Sun, etc. you only have to track down ONE company to complain to if
:>something goes wrong "somewhere" in your system.
:>
:>> > I concure. That whole $1000 CD-ROM deal thay had going for a while was
:>> > pretty darn silly.
:>
:>SGI and Sun really arent in the components business. Part of the premium
:>you pay is for a period's worth service. Plus, with things like memory,
:>you reduce the likelyhood of frying a board due to poorly fitting SIMMs
:>that some 3rd party makers ship.
These are both non-issues. It is a relatively trivial matter to purchase
premium PC hardware and peripherals. It's the people that walk into
fry's that have problems.
In fact, the various proprietary vendors often purchase their memory
and disk drives from the same places the PC industry purchases them from.
I have yet to come across a vendor-supplied SIMM or vendor-supplied
disk drive that was MORE reliable then what I could otherwise purchase
myself.
Tracking down 'whos at fault' is also a relatively simple matter.. or,
at least, no more difficult between a PC box and a vendor-supplied box.
You still have to track it down on a vendor supplied box, their support
is NOT going to be able to help you very much. 99% of the time it's
obvious, and replacing the board/drive in question is trivial and not very
costly. Unlike the PC's of three years ago, the typical rack-mounted
pentium pro server box has very few parts in it... basically a
motherboard, power supply, memory, PCI ethernet board, and PCI SCSI
board.. oh, and a simple video card.
Even three years ago PCs generally had additional third party cards or
chips for the secondary cache.. a big problem considering the tight
timing, and more of a mix of ISA and sometimes incompatible PCI cards.
Older motherboards did not have multi-master DMA capability for all
PCI slots. None of this exists any more. PPro motherboards are sparse
compared with pentium 90 motherboards.
I have never been impressed with vendor-supplied support. We've had
terrible problems in the past with SGI, having to explain their own
hardware to their own tech support people and getting idiotic answers
from mid level managers. That eventually changed, but it was a matter
of too little, too late. It isn't worth the premium they charge.
-Matt
:>-tom
:>
:>--
:>
:>Regional Technical Analyst "You frighten me...
:>Silicon Graphics, Inc. "...please go away."
:>Chantilly, VA -- Arthur, 'The Tick'
:>(703) 227-8521