romeo@lindy.stanford.edu (Patrick Goebel) (02/16/90)
Last week I posted a question about 3rd party RAM and disks for Sun's SPARC systems. Many thanks for all the extremely informative responses! Here is the promised summary: 1. Buying 3rd party equipment for Sun workstations is not a "mean" thing to do to Sun. On the contrary, Sun's exorbitant pricing on RAM and disks has essentially *created* the 3rd party market. 2. Purchasing 3rd party RAM is problably the least risky alternative. It is apparently easy to find manufacturers who honor a LifeTime warranty on the chips and provide a 24-hour replacement service. The two most commonly recommended sources were ClearPoint and Parity. Current prices are roughly $90/Mb. Average Sun RAM costs around $500/Mb (list) or about $300/Mb with the best university discount. 3. There was no clear concensus on which 3rd party disks to buy. One emphatic negative vote was cast toward Group 3 Electronics. Favorable sources included CITA, HP, Dallas Digital, InterPhase, Box Hill Systems, Parity, Artecon, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Imprimis, Xylogics and Highland Digital. SCSI disk boxes cost roughly 5$-7$/Mb. Sun SCSI runs $15/Mb (list) or $10/Mb (best discount). A Fujitsu 2.02-Gb SMD disk due out this month measures in at $5/Mb. Sun SMD technology falls in the $19-$26/Mb range (list) or $12-$17/Mb (best discount). Caution must be exercised when judging these figures since it is unclear whether such prices include controllers, cables, power supplies and mounting hardware. 4. Reliability of 3rd party disks does not seem to be an issue. However, compatibility and maintenance are major concerns. If you've already decided on a Sun maintenance contract for your core system, the simplest and safest (but not cheapest) solution is to buy equipment that Sun will service under their contract. Alternatively, find a company that has its own reputable maintenance plan but be sure to buy controllers supported by Sun. This will ensure that the drivers for your disk get updated with new releases of Sun OS. Finally, some respondants reported using a fourth party maintenance contract to service all of their hardware and software. Some recommendations were given for the Motorola Field Support Division (call the Phoenix number, 602-438-3100, for a local representative), and Control Data. It should be noted that 3rd party disks typically come with a 1 to 5-year warranty (3 years seems typical) compared to the 90-day warranty offered by Sun. 5. If you really need the most bang for your buck, spend a day on the phone and be ready to bargain. Apparently it is not uncommon to witness a forty or fifty per cent reduction in cost in the face of a competitor's price. OUTSTANDING ISSUES 1. Which 3rd party disks and RAM chips will Sun support under their own service contracts? 2. Is there any sense of "who's on top" in the 3rd party disk business as far as reliability and service is concerned? 3. Do people typically buy disk systems one component at a time, the disk itself from one vendor, the controller from another, the cables and power supplies from someone else and the mounting hardware from yet another source? Or are there companies that sell complete systems, and if so, who are they? Patrick Goebel--romeo@lindy.stanford.edu Network Administrator CASBS