|
New Peripherals Options for iSeries Shops
by Timothy Prickett Morgan
OS/400 shops have been waiting for more capacious disks for more than a year. IBM had reliability problems with its 10K and 15K RPM disks, so IBM Rochester passed on the 35.2 GB disks that IBM sold to other computer makers and used them in other IBM machines. They now work, and you can buy them. Among other announcements last week, IBM has also debuted a new 1 GHz Integrated xSeries Server coprocessor and a 60 GB 8mm tape drive.
The new 35.2 GB disk drives, sold as feature 4319, do not rotate at 15K RPM, but rather at the slower 10K RPM. The slower rotational speed cuts down on disk performance somewhat, so customers looking to acquire the fatter 35.2 GB disks have to be careful to not bog down their system performance by switching to these new disks, which offer a lower cost per MB than the current 4.2 GB, 8.6 GB, or 17.5 GB disks. The 35.2 GB disks have a list price of $3,200, or about 9 cents per MB. The 4.2 GB, 7200 RPM disks, which were withdrawn from marketing in December 2000, sold for $1,050 new from IBM two years ago, or about 25 cents per MB. The 8.6 GB, 10K RPM disks for the OS/400 server line sell for $1,400 new from IBM today, or about 16 cents per MB. The fatter 17.5 GB disks cost $2,010, or about 11.5 cents per MB. (Retail prices for all of these disks have been, and will continue to be, considerably lower, particularly for companies that buy lots of disks.) The fatter disks will double the amount of disk capacity available on Model 270 servers to 844 GB; on Model 820 servers to 8.3 TB; on Model 830 servers to 22.2 TB; and on Model 840 servers to 38 TB.
IBM has not said when it will deliver 15K RPM disk drives in 9 GB, 18 GB, and 36 GB capacities, but the company is selling such UltraStar disk drives on the open market in limited quantities. IBM is also selling a 10K RPM UltraStar disk with 73 GB of raw capacity, and this drive could make its way onto iSeries servers as the basis of online storage archives, where performance is not an issue. It would not be surprising to see a new lineup of 15K RPM disks in time for the July iSeries "Regatta" and OS/400 V5R2 announcements. IBM has said that it will stop selling its 8.6 GB, 10K RPM disk features in AS/400 and iSeries servers on December 3.
IBM also said that it would stop selling Model 7XX processor upgrades and interactive feature upgrades on July 2. A whole slew of older peripherals for Model 7XX and Model 250 servers are also being withdrawn at that time. IBM will also stop selling the old Model 9309 beige racks that 9406-class processors and external disk arrays used to be housed in until IBM moved to server and peripheral tower configurations, starting in 1994. These racks and various related components will not be available after October 1.
Further on the storage front, IBM last week announced iSeries support for the 7208 Model 345 tape drive, which is an external tape unit that uses 8 mm tape technology. This device has a raw data capacity of 60 GB per tape, and 150 GB with 2.5 to 1 data compression. The unit has a sustained data rate of 12 MB/sec. and about 20 MB/sec., with a compression ratio of 2 to 1. (Why these ratios are different is anyone's guess.) The 7208 Model 345 is based on an IBM adaptation of the Mammoth-2, 8 mm tape spec; it employs the Adaptive Lossless Data Compression (ADLC) algorithm, which was created by IBM. The new tape drive has about three times the capacity and throughput of the 7208 Model 342 tape unit. The 7208 Model 345 device sells for $6,300, which is $300 cheaper than the price on the 7208 Model 342 unit.
IBM also last week announced an upgraded Integrated xSeries Server (IxS) server coprocessor for iSeries servers that uses a 1 GHz Pentium III processor. The new feature 2799 IxS is used in the Model 8XX machines, and the feature 2899 IxS is the same server implemented on a PCI bus for the Model 270 servers. Like the feature 2791 and 2891 IxS adjunct servers for Model 8XX and 270 machines, which used an 850 MHz Pentium III processor, the new IxS card supports either Windows NT or Windows 2000 operating systems and provides up to 4 GB of main memory for those operating systems. The IxS servers use iSeries disks to store their data.
The base IxS using the 1 GHz Pentium III comes with 128 MB of main memory and sells for $2,800. This is also the same price IBM was charging two years ago for an Integrated Netfinity Server coprocessor using a 700 MHz Pentium III processor, and it is also the same price IBM was charging for the IxS using the 850 MHz Pentium III chip. These prices do not exactly follow the impressive price/performance that all Wintel server vendors have delivered to the market over the past two years. IBM sells the xSeries 200 tower server, which has a 1 GHz Pentium III processor, 128 MB of memory, and 20 GB of disk capacity, for a mere $799. While server consolidation certainly offers some value to iSeries and AS/400 customers who are sick of the hassles of managing outboard Wintel machines, IBM has got to offer more compelling pricing on the IxS servers if it hopes to attract new customers to the iSeries fold.
It is important to note, of course, that the IxS cards are not supported on the entry iSeries machine, the Model 250. This is also a problem. If you are trying to create a hybrid OS/400-Windows platform to attract small and midsize businesses, it seems logical that the latest IxS card should be available for the Model 250. However, the feature 2866 Integrated Netfinity Server has only a 333 MHz Pentium II processor and only supports 1 GB of main memory. This is not really enough power to support Windows NT or Windows 2000. Perhaps more significant, the old INS card will be withdrawn from marketing on July 2, along with a lot of other Model 250 features.
IBM also announced a new WAN modem adapter, with support for four 56K or 33.6K modems. Features 2805 and 2806 will be available for Model 8XX and 270 servers starting June 28; they cost $1,600 each.
|
