Comment You must be spending other people's money (Score 1) 98
I very much care what it costs me, so TCO is one of the most important measurements of all.
> I have a used halfbrick here. It costs 99% less to buy (excluding shipping) and uses 0% of the power. The TCO is vastly better than either of the two options you present.
So the scorecard reads:
Item Effective Fast TCO
hw1 yes yes 6
hw2 yes yes 2
brick no na 0
It looks to me like "brick" loses because it can't do the job. The other two options are the same, except hw1 costs three times as much.
They can both do the job, and both can do it fast. The only difference is that the TCO is a lot lower on hw2, so it's the best choice.
> TCO is a meaningless measure and it's sad that it persists.
What your brick example shows is that TCO is not the ONLY consideration. "Can it do the job?" is also a critical consideration.
Amazingly, when making decisions you can actually consider more than one factor. You can look at both effectiveness AND cost.
> I have a used halfbrick here. It costs 99% less to buy (excluding shipping) and uses 0% of the power. The TCO is vastly better than either of the two options you present.
So the scorecard reads:
Item Effective Fast TCO
hw1 yes yes 6
hw2 yes yes 2
brick no na 0
It looks to me like "brick" loses because it can't do the job. The other two options are the same, except hw1 costs three times as much.
They can both do the job, and both can do it fast. The only difference is that the TCO is a lot lower on hw2, so it's the best choice.
> TCO is a meaningless measure and it's sad that it persists.
What your brick example shows is that TCO is not the ONLY consideration. "Can it do the job?" is also a critical consideration.
Amazingly, when making decisions you can actually consider more than one factor. You can look at both effectiveness AND cost.