On 09/03/97 21:04:48 you wrote:
Netapp *really* does its customers a disservice but its RIDICULOUS pricing on common accessories.
$1950 list for a F/W Cuda 4 from netapp...and they offered us this *incredible* 15% discount...wow $1657.50...
Tech Data had the same drive for $665.
I love our toasters, but someone in netapp marketing really needs to get a grip on reality.
Jonah
I take the Devil's Advocate (and probably unpopular) position. Sure, everyone would love to be able to get the parts cheaper, but that carries a higher risk unless you are using approved parts. The parts Netapp sells you are going to be tested to some extent. The failure rate of disk drives is very high; you are paying a premium partly for that reliability testing.
You may think you see the same part elsewhere... but is it *really* the same part? Is the drive's firmware version the same? What about the NIC card's ethernet chip revision? Or firmware on your FDDI or ATM card? Those things do matter, and just because you may have a third-party component that appears to work doesn't mean it doesn't have a lingering bug, or that it won't stop working in a subsequent software release due to Netapp changing their drivers. Would you want to risk explaining to your boss that the filesystem is trashed or the server won't come back up because you decided to save a few hundred or even a thousand dollars on an acessory, and that Network Appliance can't be blamed for the failure?
Now, that having been said, I do agree that many of the prices are steeper than I would like to see as a customer, and I think they need to be reduced to discourage customers from doing what I described above and getting into some serious trouble. But I personally wouldn't risk an unapproved component, and I would be remiss in not advising others to avoid it as well.
Bruce