[comp.sys.dec] What's inside an RD54?

thorinn@skinfaxe.diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen) (11/11/89)

We have a number of VaxStation 2000s with RD54 disks, and we foresee
the day when the disks go flaky on us (all other DEC hard disks we
have had have done so). As we do not have a maintenance contract and
probably never will, we have thought of exchanging the drives
ourselves. So the question is: Is an RD54 a common type of Winchester
drive internally, or is it specific to DEC?

If anybody knows I'd really appreciate if you let me know by email.
Even more so for success stories. I'll summarise.

--
Lars Mathiesen, DIKU, U of Copenhagen, Denmark      [uunet!]mcvax!diku!thorinn
Institute of Datalogy -- we're scientists, not engineers.      thorinn@diku.dk

envbvs@epb2.lbl.gov (Brian V. Smith) (11/17/89)

The RD54 is just the Maxtor XT-2190 winchester disk.

The RD53 (if anyone is interested in that dinosaur) is a Micropolis 101405-02-5
whatever that number means.  That is the only number I could find on it.

We opened up our vaxstations a while back to see what kind of replacement disks
we might have to buy when they die.

_____________________________________
Brian V. Smith    (bvsmith@lbl.gov)
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
I don't speak for LBL, these non-opinions are all mine.

rcb@ccpv1.ncsu.edu (Randy Buckland) (11/17/89)

envbvs@epb2.lbl.gov (Brian V. Smith) writes:
>The RD54 is just the Maxtor XT-2190 winchester disk.
>The RD53 (if anyone is interested in that dinosaur) is a Micropolis 101405-02-5
>whatever that number means.  That is the only number I could find on it.

The RD53 is a Micropolis 1325D. A standard 1325 will work if you can get it 
formatted. I got our local Field service guy to format it with his version
of the diagnostics tape which has a more complete formatter. A 2000 could
probably format it as well.
Randy Buckland
rcb@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu

ws@cup.portal.com (Wiley M Sanders) (11/20/89)

As a matter of fact, I have an RD53 running in my ancient
Tecmar Mac Drive! The Mac Drive (connected to the Macintosh
through the serial port (argh)) doesn't recognize more than
10MB of the RD53, but it works fine and puts the RD53 to a
slightly better use than a doorstop.
-wiley