November 8th, 2007
Macs cost less than PCs - if you erase the disks
From the why-didn’t-I-think-of-that? department
Over on Salon, Farhad Manjoo connected the dots between purchase price and resale value of Macs and PCs. He compared a bunch of systems and here’s what he found:
If you used your HP for a year and then sold it, you would have spent $449 to own it — that is, your purchase price of $699 minus your sale price of $250. The Mac Mini, for the same year, would have set you back far less: $799 minus $500, or just $299.
And that is not including the cost, in money and time, of anti-virus software.
Elegance is free!
Over on the Wall Street Journal tech blog the worthy Ben Worthen notes the Salon article, but excuses business for not buying Macs:
Few companies resell computers that employees have used. And if they did, they probably shouldn’t: This study shows that it’s possible to recover the data that used to be on a computer, even if the hard disk has been erased.
Repeating a canard doesn’t make it true.
Yes, hard drives can be erased . . .
As loyal Storage Bits readers know, from How to really erase a hard drive, it is indeed possible to erase a hard drive using the ANSI standard Secure Erase commands built into every ATA drive in the last 6 years.
Secure Erase is certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) to meet the requirements of HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, FACTA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Once performed, you can resell that Mac, take your money and pick up one of those sharp 24″ iMacs.
“But Robin, we’re business weenies. We need protection!”
In fact, a company up on the New Hampshire coast - you figure it out, there’s only 17 miles of it - named Ensconce, sells a machine that will ANSI standard erase 3 drives at once using Secure Erase technology.
From Intelligent Computer Solutions there is the much cheaper - for a reason -
. . . Wipe MASSter unit erases data from and sanitizes hard drives at speeds exceeding 3GB/Min for 9 drives simultaneously. Wipe out your drives in a fast mode or per DOD specs.
The difference: the MASSter uses the older 7x DOD standard, while Ensconce goes with the Secure Erase system. On the other hand, you can get 4 MASSters handling 36 drives for the same price as a 3 drive Ensconce. Secure Erase is much faster and more secure, but it could be overkill for some folks.
The Storage Bits take
Apple doesn’t make low-end systems, so you’ll always be able to buy a cheaper PC. But what the Salon article points out is that you may not be buying as valuable a PC.
For the business market Secure Erase means that you *can* resell systems safely. So those savings are available to business - despite what the Wall Street Journal says.
Comments welcome, of course.
Robin Harris has been messing with computers for over 30 years and selling and marketing data storage for over 20 in companies large and small. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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funny face...
