lakin@csli.stanford.edu (Fred Lakin) (06/06/90)
In summary, many folk have been running as I described (pizza box on side) for up to a year with no problems. However, one person raised a good point about the orientation of internal drives. INSTALLATION: I put mine feet to the wall, secured with eye-bolts and 20-26" bungie cord. Because of the internal drive orientation problem (see below), it's flopy slot side up, on blocks to clear vents on the bottom. And then a dust flap over the floppy slot. CAVEAT: Scott Baeder points out that disk drives like to be on THEIR side or bottom; putting the pizza box front side down puts the drive on its head. My guess is that face down is BAD, since the drive would be on its head, not its side...We run with them on one side all the time, and have had no problems yet...as always, CAVEAT EMPTOR... could be ok, I'm just going by what the manual for a quantum (40 Meg in my amiga at home) manual said... (the sparcs we have have Quantum drives). ************************ responses ****************** |From: rec@arris.com (Roger Critchlow) We've been running three SS1's on their faces on the floor for almost six months now. We've had no problems with them. |From: pbg@cs.brown.edu We have many Sparcstation1's running just as you said (green light down) without problems. It's best to format any internal disk in the orientation in which it will be used, but we haven't had any problems along those lines. |From: wsd@cs.brown.edu I don't know what the official opinion is, but I know quite a few people who do just what you described. They seem happy. |From: cadence!baeder@uunet.uu.net (D. Scott Baeder; x299) My guess is that face down is BAD, since the drive would be on its head, not its side...We run with them on one side all the time, and have had no problems yet...as always, CAVEAT EMPTOR... |From: Mitchell Wyle <wyle@inf.ethz.ch> I have had mine on the floor in the position you describe since it arrived. No problems or downtime (except power failures). |From: portier@milo (Working For A Better World Through Math) We have had an SS1 operating in this mode for 6 months. No problems. Configuration includes two 100 meg disks which have worked flawlessly. The only problem is that the floppy drive is inaccessible. |From: sysnmc@magic706.chron.com (Matt Cohen) My 4/60 has been on its side, behind my desk, at least since September with no trouble. Good luck! |From: cadence!baeder@uunet.UU.NET (D. Scott Baeder) Could be ok, I'm just going by what the manual for a quantum (40 Meg in my amiga at home) manual said... (the Sparcs we have have Quantum drives). As for heat and ventilation, I doubt that unless you really jack up the memory (ie 64 Meg) that heat would be a big problem... As for the other responses, I guess it also depends on if they are using internal drives or not...ie we run a lot of 3/60's and diskless Sparcs (external drives) face down, but I think that for the Sparcs with drives & 3/80's we mostly put them side down... But, as they say, "...your mileage may vary" |From: cadence!baeder@uunet.UU.NET (D. Scott Baeder) I don't think side makes a difference, but your right...floppy side down wouldn't be too usefull ;-)
datri@uunet.uu.net (Anthony A. Datri) (06/07/90)
I find it interesting that people in this string, along with others, speak of SS1's as if they all have internal disks -- isn't *anyone* out there running them diskless, or at least without internal drives?
rmk@snowhit.att.com (06/09/90)
> I find it interesting that people in this string, along with others, speak > of SS1's as if they all have internal disks -- isn't *anyone* out there > running them diskless, or at least without internal drives? I am running every imaginable combination of internal/external/diskless, from 100 Mbyte to 1 Gbyte. Most of my clients like the internal disks since it eliminates external drive fan noise and keeps down the clutter under and around their desks. With NFS and all shared files on the servers they don't even want their own larger drives. Richard Kurtz (816)995-3204 "My opinions do not reflect AT&T rmk@snowhit.att.com the corporate policy of AT&T"