Les Mikesell wrote: > On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 2:23 PM, <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote: >>> >>> If the future continues anything like the past, you'll be be able to >>> buy something new with twice the speed and 10x the space by then and >>> be better off starting over than allocating more than you need today. >> >> a) You think I, or a *lot* of other folks, are going to do that at home? >> (Please - I'm trying to get my fiancee to at *least* go from >> *shudder* Vista to Win7) > > If you leave them on, add up the power cost of running an old box for > years. Sorry, that doesn't work either: *everything* new seems to need a lot more power than the older stuff. Certainly, last time I upgraded my own system, I had to buy one that was 150% the power of the old one. > >> b) I'm a federal contractor, on site. You think the Republicans in >> Congress are going to increase our budget, to replace all servers >> over three or four years old? > > Yes, if someone does the report to show that it will save money in the > big picture... But you don't necessarily throw out the 3 year old > boxes, you can re-purpose them to something where people aren't > waiting idly for their results, keeping some others for spare parts. > In any case, someone should be accounting for the space/power/cooling > that old hardware takes while accomplishing 10% as much as new. We already repurpose. There's a limit to parts - when something gets surplussed, it has to have pretty much what we bought it with (a different h/d's no big deal, though). And the budget won't *allow* say, 20 or 50 or 70 new servers in one year. I can give you, with a 98% confidence level, that our budget (we're not DoD) will *NOT* be upped by 10%. The sob's just "saved money" by a) taking away our water coolers (we can use the metal water fountains, y'know) and b) not refilling one of the three soap dispensers in the men's room on this floor. Mind-bogglingly petty? Damn straight. Cheap? Bet *their* offices still have the water.... mark "and our people are trying to do real science" ObDisclaimer: I speak only for myself, not for my agency or my employer.