RE: Cost of tape drives

[Neil Palmer <npalmer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Why do you say it's a mistake ?  IBM has been hit over the head to bring
the cost of the base system down and they have done a pretty good job of
that.  If you want 8mm instead of the standard ¼" tape then you pay the
cost.  The direction has been towards 'unbundled' prices.  Would you
rather they jacked up the price of the base system to cover the
attachment cards for 8mm, when many users would not want them ?

If you want more capacity than the 6381 2.5GB ¼" gives you (which is
around 3.5 to 4.0GB in QIC2DC format with compression), then consider
the 6385 13GB ¼" unit.
With Lempel-Ziv 1 data compression this can store approx 26GB of data.
The data transfer rate is five times faster than the 6481 ¼", and three
times faster than the 6390 7GB 8mm unit, and it costs about 30% less
than the 6390 8mm unit.

JMHO  :-)

... Neil Palmer                                     AS/400~~~~~      
... NxTrend Technology - Canada     ____________          ___  ~     
... Thornhill, Ontario,  Canada     |OOOOOOOOOO| ________  o|__||=   
... Phone: (905) 731-9000  x238     |__________|_|______|_|______)   
... Cell.: (416) 565-1682  x238      oo      oo   oo  oo   OOOo=o\   
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        -----Original Message-----
        From:   David Duerr [SMTP:dduerr@ix.netcom.com]
        Sent:   Tuesday, January 13, 1998 11:11 PM
        To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
        Subject:        Re: Cost of tape drives

        The cost of adding an 8mm tape drive (plus the 2 required
adapter cards)  to our
        600e nearly doubled the hardware cost.  I find that absolutely
absurd.  Even our
        agent was appalled. I am currently looking at other vendor
solutions.  Why does
        IBM continue to shot the AS/400 in the foot by making stupid
little mistakes like
        this, that draws the ire of their customers and
disproportionately diminishes the
        excellence of the AS/400.

        John Bussert wrote:

        > Is it just me, or is there something wrong when the tape drive
you buy is a
        > substantial part of the cost of the new e series?
        >
        > John Bussert
        > jbussert@stecnet.com
        > Swift Technologies, Inc.
        > 847-289-8339
        >
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