Scuse me while I Rant...

[jsbowden]

So, I have this robotic tape library that I've had a hate hate relationship with for going on four years now. It works well enough that I can't justify the cost of a replacement, but at the same time, it fucks up often enough to annoy the hell out of me (about twice a week, I have to manually pull a tape out of the drive as tape A gets hung in slot B when trying to pull out).

It Came From StorageTek!

Coming Soon!

To a datacenter near you!

Thrills, chills, excitement, adventure!

Now, these days Sun Microsystems is who I have to turn to for support on this, as they bought StorageTek a couple years back. It seems we don't have support on this bit of hardware anymore. Why is that? Well, it's because when our last support contract expired, they never sent us a renewal letter. Why would they want our money for essentially nothing, after all? I mean, in four years, I've called them once. I called them a few weeks ago now for a quote on a new support contract, as I HATE having production equipment not having coverage, especially on something as critical as back ups.

Of course, I've never heard back from them. And what do I come in to find this morning? A FAILED TAPE DRIVE! YAY! Thank you Sun, another company I could once depend on, now just another vendor I'd burn to the ground given the option.

Oh, and it's FUCKING SNOWING. A lot.

Comments

[cmseward.livejournal.com]

Look on the bright side, now you can justify the cost of a replacement?

(And, for some therapeutic "revenge", you can send the sales department at Sun detailing *why* you are not going to be spending $BIGNUM on one of their products.)

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

No, I'll just be able to replace the failed drive, not the whole library.

As far as buying from Sun goes, we haven't in quite a while. We were never a big Sun shop at my current employer (lots and lots of SGI though), and these days we're using Linux and FreeBSD for most of our Unix-y needs.

[lundblad.livejournal.com]

A lot?

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

It was when I originally posted this. US 50 (Arlington Blvd.) was turning white despite traffic, and I couldn't see across the Potomac. Then it stopped. Supposedly, it's going to start again (or maybe has, I haven't been near a window in several hours now), and the radar at the time indicated a large swathe to the west moving east.