Actually, Bill, Roland still leaves it up to the individual and/or corporation as to whether they want to include a Jaz Drive. However, it is true that Roland no longer supports the Jaz Drive for their machines. Nevertheless, if I were to request, hypothetically 20 VS880s all with Jaz, Roland would, as they stated to me, accept the order. I could buy one today and have a Jaz drive installed. I believe that the problem Roland experienced could be one of two things: (a) some upty up at Roland, or one of their customers, probably mishandled the Jaz drive the wrong way and it blew up, or (b) the competition is also using Jaz so they decided to differentiate themselves by plugging Syquest. It is most likely (b). Roland's contention that it was "issues" was simply a way of saying that they need to distinguish themselves from their compeition by slamming another company's drive and plugging the one they use now. Roland could not prove in an instant failure rate if they wanted to because it hasn't happened frequently enough for proof. Frankly, I think Roland's run more by marketing glitz than technical expertise.
I've spoken with SEVERAL TECHS AT MANY DIFFERENT FIRMS (including Jaz Drives sold to the US Military - the US Military, by the way, buys ONLY JAZ DRIVES FOR COMPATIBILITY REASONS) regarding the Jazz Drive versus Syquest failure rate, all of which have stated that both drives will fail about the same rate. The techs I spoke with (at Data Fix) in fact use the Jaz Drive for back-up and multiple application storage. Nada fail.
This failure BS is nothing but grind em' out competition bull. THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ALTERIOR MOTIVES BEHIND THE FAILURE RATES OF JAZ DRIVES. |
