On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Tony Paolucci wrote:
| | |>>> Dave Hitz hitz@netapp.com 02/24 9:32 AM >>> | |>> To open a real can-of-worms, what would people on this list like to see in |>> a low-end product offering? (Sub-$10k chassis). | |>This hypothetical discussion would be of great interest to me. :-) | |I'll take a crack at it: | |PC-ish Mini-tower not to exceed 19" high (so it could be rack mounted on its side) |Lower-end Alpha or medium Intel processor (whatever's cheaper for NetApp) |256 MB RAM |4-8MB NVRAM |Single 10/100 Ethernet |Single SCSI Bus |Up to 7 9GB (or larger?) disks |A couple of PCI slots for other types of network interfaces, and/or SCSI Tape. | |Make it one box, disks and all. | |Don't worry about hot-swap or hot spare disks. If you're buying at this end of the market, down time probably costs you less than it does the big-boys. Instead, sell a cold-spare disk which sit on the shelf until they need it. | |If it saves mfg costs, solder the memory, nvram & ethernet to the motherboard. Ship a single config. | |With a max usable of +/- 50GB a box like this could be a departmental fileserver, or a NetCache box for small to medium organizations who don't need/want a big NetApp for the job. | |I don't know how close this comes to the $10K figure. It's probably closer to $20K maxed with disks. |Still, that's my .$.02 worth
Hey Wait! You just described the F220/F210 product line ;)
*ducks*
Jonah
Jonah Barron Yokubaitis http://www.texas.net <--- The ISP http://www.giganews.com <--- News Outsourcing