On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 03:37:08PM -0400, Ron wrote:
studies. I respect that. Unfortunately the RW is too fast moving
and too messy to wait for a laboratory style study to be completed
before we are called on to make professional decisions on most
issues we face within our work
IME I have to serve my customers in a timely fashion that for the
most part prohibits me from waiting for the perfect experiment's outcome.
Which is what distinguishes your field from a field such as
engineering or medicine, and which is why waving the term
"malpractice" around is just plain silly.
Ok, since you know I am an engineer that crossed a professional line
in terms of insult. That finishes this conversation.
Actually, I don't know what you are. I obviously should have been more
specific that the field I was refering to is computer systems
integration, which isn't a licensed engineering profession in any
jurisdiction that I'm aware of.
...and you know very well that the use of the term "malpractice" was
not in the legal sense but in the strict dictionary sense: "mal,
meaning bad" "practice, meaning "professional practice."
That's the literal definition or etymology; the dictionary definition
will generally include terms like "negligence", "established rules",
etc., implying that there is an established, objective standard. I just
don't think that hard disk choice (or anything else about designing a
hardware & software system) can be argued to have an established
standard best practice. Heck, you probably can't even say "I did that
sucessfully last year, we can just implement the same solution" because
in this industry you probably couldn't buy the same parts (exagerrating
only somewhat).
And claiming to have to wait for perfection is a red herring. Did
you record the numbers of disks involved (failed & nonfailed), the
models, the environmental conditions, the power on hours, etc.?
That's what would distinguish anecdote from systematic study.
Yes, as a matter of fact I =do= keep such maintenance records for
operations centers I've been responsible for.
Great! If you presented those numbers along with some context the data
could be assessed to form some kind of rational conclusion. But to
remind you of what you'd offered up to the time I suggested that you
were offering anecdotal evidence in response to a request for
statistical evidence:
OTOH, I've spent my career being as careful as possible to as much as
possible run HW within manufacturer's suggested specifications. I've
been chided for it over the years... ...usually by folks who "save"
money by buying commodity HDs for big RAID farms in NOCs or push their
environmental envelope or push their usage envelope or ... ...and then
act surprised when they have so much more down time and HW replacements
than I do.
All I can tell you is that I've gotten to eat my holiday dinner far more
often than than my counterparts who push it in that fashion.
I don't know how to describe that other than as anecdotal. You seem to
be interpreting the term "anecdotal" as pejorative rather than
descriptive. It's not anecdotal because I question your ability or any
other such personal factor, it's anecdotal because if your answer to the
question is "in my professional opinion, A" and someone else says "in my
professional opinion, !A", we really haven't gotten any hard data to
synthesize a rational opinion.
Mike Stone
