fmbutt@ursa-major.spdcc.com (Farooq Butt) (12/13/89)
A while ago when I was a neophyte, I asked some folks on the net on how how I could save myself some money by not buying things like disks/disk controllers, tape controllers or memory from Sun for a 3/280. I was treated to delightful barrage of information about the hundreds o' third party (Mostly) VME boards/disks/tapes one may buy from the likes of, say, Arrow Electronics or R-Squared to save money. The time has finally come to purchase a SPARCserver or two or three and I am wondering whether any of you would/could share info. about the same stuff for SPARCservers. I am totally ignorant of the SPARC architecture so please feel free to spoon-feed info :-) Questions: + Will any controller that fits into a 3/280 (VME/Multibus) work in a SPARCserver ? + Should I use SMD or IPI disks ? (seems IPI is vaporware right now) + Will a, say, Xylogics 472 tape controller work in a SPARCserver ? If so will it require the same kludgy VME<->Multibus adapter? + Is there 3rd party memory available ? + Should I be think about superduper disks or are 1.2Gbyte Sabers "good 'nuff" ? fmbutt@lectroid.sw.stratus.com
us214777@uc.msc.umn.edu (John C. Schultz) (01/01/90)
>+ Is there 3rd party memory available ?
In late July I ordered an add-on memory board from SUN who was (and
perhaps still is) the only vendor capable of suppling the little 3U high
memory boards which contain 16 MB of DRAM. So I bought a board. About
when I got delivery (Nov 1) I found out that you can buy 4 MB SIMMS (from
PARITY to name one vendor) to replace the memory on the 4/330 motherboard.
This works out to be 32 MB for about the same price that SUN charges for
16 MB on the add-on card (PCB's are expensive right :-)). Plus you get the
8MB that was originally on the 4/330 motherboard.
Anyway, third party memory is definitely available. We also use the same
Bit 3 bus repeaters in the 4/330 as we do in our 3/160. The only problem
I have seen is an apparent problem with the SUN 4 vme24d16 device driver
during debugging (which I have mentioned before on the net).
John C. Schultz EMAIL: jcschultz@mmm.3m.com
3M Company WRK: +1 (612) 733 4047
3M Center, Building 518-01-1 St. Paul, MN 55144-1000
The opinions expressed above are my own and DO NOT reflect 3M's