>I want to buy a new development system before the end of the year. I want to have Windows 2000, Office 2000, and a CD-RW drive. Preferably a ZIP drive too. This DELL system looks like a "best buy".
>
> Dimension® L Series, Intel® Celeron™ Processor at 600 MHz
> Memory: 256MB SDRAM
> Video Card: Intel 3D AGP Graphics IV
> Hard Drive: 20GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
> Operating System: NEW Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional
> Network Card: Integrated Intel® 10/100 Ethernet Controller
> Modem: V.90/56K PCI DataFax Modem for Windows, NT
> CD/DVD ROM Drive: 8x/4x/32x CD-RW Drive
> Sound Card: Soundblaster 64V Integrated
> Speakers: harman/kardon Speakers
> Bundled Software: Microsoft® Office 2000 Small Business
> Zip Drives: 100MB Zip Drive with One Disk
>
> Price: $1,146 (with $100 discount which expires 12/5/00)
>
>The question is how likely is this system to exhibit the Win2K-VFP file corruption bug? Perhaps Ed will have an opinion on this.
>
AFAIK, it's going to show the same behavior as the other systems running Win2K seem to have; it's the issue with the ATA interface which seems to be behind the problem. The problem is, the 20GB costs less than a good SCSI HA alone would; an Adaptec 2940AU2 or an off-brand equivalent is going to run $100-200, more if you want something that offers U3W (I don't see this as an issue), and a reman'd 18GB 10KRPM drive with a 3 year warranty is over $300, plus shipping, while a 20GB 5400RPM drive costs < $150, with 30GB 7200RPM ATA-66 or -100 drives under $200 in the door.
If you own and can live with VSS, I'd be inclined to add a second drive to the system, put VSS up using that drive for VSS, and put your work under source control. A Zip drive is not a reasonable backup solution - I'd add a tape drive capable of holding 10GB-20GB (raw/compressed) like the Seagate TapeStor 22000 internal drive kit first above anything else.
The problem is IDE device count - the first disk and the CD-RW drive are the first two IDE devices, the Zip might be IDE, the second drive costs least in IDE, and the tape I recommended is IDE - and you can only accomodate 4 IDE devices. Something needs to be connected using another adapter - the Zip comes in USB, floppy, and parallel interfaces, there are USB hard drives as well - neither of the vendors I checked had a USB tape drive listed, but I'm fairly sure you can find one, and there are floppy and parallel port drives. The main issue for any device is that it has to come with Win2K support. USB should be the preferred interface for an external device. I'd sacrifice the Zip drive entirely for myself, or get it in USB or floppy interface if that's an option.
You may have an existing tape or Zip on another system that you plan to put on your network. Whatever you do for tape, it must have Win2K support now, and a tape drive is definitely the first priority from my POV (you can put VSS on the same drive with the rest of the software; with 20GB there might be enough space), then the 2nd hard drive, and the Zip is a distant third, where I'd be most willing to use a slower interface for it or give it up entirely. In fact, I'd put TapeDisk (a utility that lets you treat a tape drive as if it were a disk volume) above the Zip. Here at home, I have two Jaz drives, a DDS-3 DAT and a CD-RW on the three primary machines in my network, and no Zip drive at all. The Jaz drives I picked up cheap; I use the Jaz for my WIP backup and as my emergency boot device - I keep a complete bootable version for each system as a cartridge - I can attach it to my systems externally, make a change in the BIOS setting for the boot disk SCSI ID, and boot a full, configured copy of the OS in an emergency, and rebuild the system drive from backup tape without needing to reinstall the OS. SCSI allows lots of flexibility, but it was not cheap - using system boards with built-in SCSI capability added between $150-300 to the cost of each system board, and getting LVD SCSI drives probably doubles the cost/MB for the drives, but they're 7200RPM or 10KRPM UW drives, and I have no problem adding devices - the P2B-S can handle 4 ATA and 15 SCSI devices, and the P6D-GUs can take 4 ATA and
30 SCSI devices each; I use ATA for CD and DVD stuff, and have each box set up with an external UW port to let me connect the Jaz and DAT drives as needed, or add more disks if I ever need them. The cost of an 18GB 10KRPM reman'd drive with a 3 year warranty runs about $350 in the door, vs $225-$250 for a new 7200RPM 45GB UltraATA-100 drive. You can get IBM's hottest 7200RPM 75GB UltraATA-100 drive for under $500. If price is an issue, you can add a second drive and a tape backup device for less than the cost of going to a high-end SCSI HA and a reman'd 18GB drive - a new Adaptec 19160 Ultra-160 HA and a new IBM 18GB UW-160 drive will run nearly $600, and you can spend lots more than that without breaking a sweat or significantly increase storage; going to the 29160N and Seagate's 15KRPM 18GB Cheetah XL15 is going to run nearly $800, and you can drive the price of the HA up going to 64 bit PCI.
The question you need to ask is does the cost of going SCSI justify having half the amount of storage and no tape drive for the same money? You need to use VSS or something like WinZip to
regularly back up/put under source control each form/report/class library as they get changed to improve the reliability of your changes. I think using VSS is a great thing to do IAC; I used it before I ever had Win2K, and am accustomed to the minor inconvenience it adds to working on projects. I think the benefits of version control, especially where I decide to roll back some set of changes or when I want to look at the history of an item outweigh the increased time to open projects and compile apps. Learning something about it isn't a bad idea anyway.
If I had $500 to add to the configuration you listed and didn't have any other reasons for implementing SCSI, I'd add a 2nd drive and tape drive in a heartbeat, and use VSS. If I were starting to assemble several systems with an eye to long-term storage benefits, I'd look at IEEE 1394 FireWire - it's the current stated direction for data storage evolution in the PC hardware roadmaps, and several vendors, icluding Intel, have motherboards that include FireWire, as do the Mac systems shipping now. If I were doing "I hit the Lotto, cost is no object, performance is everything" custom box, I'd do Fiber Channel SCSI and multiple Xeons with gobs of RDRAM or DSDRAM and stop worrying about what this nutcase Ed thought was a good idea.
Well, you asked...
>The other question is: can I expect that the bug will be fixed before long (a few months)?
>
No clue here.
>I've priced some SCSI systems and they come out at least $500 more.
>
That sounds about right, and I already said what I'd do with $500 more.
>I'm also open to having a local computer shop put together a system.
>
Not my first choice - if I want to go custom, I want someone who really knows what they're doing to spec and build the beastie. I like MIND and PCNut - these are the guys I call when I want to bounce ideas about rolling something for myself, and I buy from them because I know that anything they put together for me will be assembled and configured well, with high-quality components, and even though they are not the least expensive source, I use them because I want to have them in business giving me really good advice the next time I'm looking to buy a custom box. I am capable of buying parts and assembling something; if I have them put it together, at least what they assemble is warrantied as a whole, and they will take the little extra effort to neaten up the cabling, make sure the latest BIOS version is installed, burn in the memory, replace the normal case screws with thumbscrews so the case can be opened conveniently, etc. It's worth the extra cost in these situations. Once I have the system, I roll my own and maintain it myself. I don't have my clients do custom boxes in general - I want them to get a box that can be easily serviced, where replacement parts are readily available, with 24/7 customer support, from a vendor that's likely to be in business this time next year. IOW, Gateway, Dell, HP, IBM, Compaq and similar vendors offer standardized systems, with high-end components when necessary, which can be reliably installed and maintained for a little more money. perhaps the high-end tweaking could give another 5% performance improvement, the cost of that tweaking in the lon run in terms of TCO isn't justified because they aren't going to do it as a hobby.
Mom & Pop computer shops don't invest the time in turning out high-end product, and they can't match the price benefits of a large vendor. If they can sell you a box cheaper than HP, it's probably not as good as HP's box.
>All opinions welcome.
>
>Peter Robinson
