SCSI to IDE

On 27 Nov 2010 at 15:42, Eric Smith wrote: For those wondering about "bathtub curves" see the following very good paper: http://db.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index .html Which essentially sheds a lot of light on the MTTF issue (which appears to be part snake oil). The far end of the bathtub curve is characterized as the "wearout" end, just as it would be with, say, an automobile. It makes a lot of difference if you drive a 1957 Chevy Belair with 5,000 miles on the clock and one with 750,000 miles. True, components such as tires will fail due to their nature, but which would you rather have? So time spent spinning is quite germane in a disk drive. But as I mentioned, MTTF on hard disks largely seems to be a statistical trick not particularly observed by reality--and the Schroeder-Gibson paper. New drive or old, you pays your money and takes your chances. But my money will be on the low-mileage units. But the OP speculated that SCSI drives will become unobtainium. My point was that the possibility is very remote, at least during my lifetime--and that not all drives have been run to death. Now, wanting a cheap substitute is a different matter--and we should be candid about this. I paid about $1000 for 330MB CDC 5.25" SCSI drive sometime around 1989 and I thought I was getting a heckuva deal. If there were a strong demand for the same drive at the same price today (adjusted for inflation), I'd imagine that an enterprising soul could find a ready supply of working drives, even if they had to be remanufactured. --Chuck