Re: filmscanners: yet *another* low cost way to avoid the future

["Anthony Atkielski" <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr>]

Johnny writes:

> AA's arguments lead to the conclusion that one
> would never have to upgrade a system that was
> at one time 'fast enough'

Correct.  If you are doing the same thing you were doing when you bought the
system, there is never any reason to upgrade it.  It doesn't get any slower over
time.

> My POV is rather that the best strategy is to
> upgrade at sensible intervals to the latest
> hardware and take the migrational pain with
> you. It lasts, erm, a week at most.

A week is long enough to go out of business.

> All this talk about 'mission critical' is
> nuts since you can either keep the two machines
> running in tandem OR partition the HD into a
> dual-boot system if you are just upgrading the
> OS.

I'd have to duplicate all the hardware, too: scanners, tape drives, CD burners,
modems, printers, and so on.  Too expensive, and no space.

Additionally, some software on the machine requires a dongle, so there is no way
to run it in parallel on two different machines.

> I've done this for years in 'mission critical'
> (is weekly TV current affairs mission-critical
> enough?) situations and never lost a machine,
> or a day's work, yet.

If you have complete duplicates, it is doable, but that is expensive.

> A power spike took out my main G4 and ethernet
> hub and internet connection three weeks ago.

Your UPS didn't protect you?

> I was up and running in an hour, and I had a
> redundant backup set to fall back on even then.

How did you manage to take delivery on a new machine in one hour?