owend@sun.com (Owen DeLong) (05/16/89)
The following is based entirely on my experience at another company, and in no way represents or indicates any statement by Sun Microsystems. The CDC 9720-1230 disk drive is an excellent drive. It performs beautifully, consumes minimal power, and transfers lightning quick. Here are the caveats: #1: You cannot use the SUN XD7053, you need a Xylogics 753 certified for the 3.0 transfer rate. The SUN controllers don't always have drivers which are fast enough for the 3.0 rate. #2: Support is a potential pitfall. I overcame the above obstacles by dealing with Dick Smith at Software Associates in Sacremento, CA <916-344-5558>. He sold me a 9720-1230 with the XY753 and the 6x9 VME-VME adapter, and delivered very quickly. He supports the 753 on the basis of a next-day-air simultaneous trade. We went to CDC to get on-site maintenance for the drive. They were quite helpful, and provided a good indication of excellent response and service. I don't know how their service actually is at the moment, as we never had problem one with the drive. Their service at other installations I have worked at has always been good in the past. The simultaneous shipping problem didn't seem significant, since the system we were using consisted of the following: xy753 CDC9773 850MB xy0 xy753 CDC9720-1230MB xy4 xy7053 Fuji Super-Eagle xy8 I kept an extra set of cables handy so that I could easily reconfigure xy4 as xy1 and run them both off of the same controller. Your installation may not have this luxury, and thus you may want to seek better support for the controller.
ekrell@ulysses.att.com (05/17/89)
>#1: You cannot use the SUN XD7053, you need a Xylogics 753 certified for >the 3.0 transfer rate. The SUN controllers don't always have drivers >which are fast enough for the 3.0 rate. I'm using a SUN SMD-4 (the 7053) with a CDC 9720-1230 drive and I've never had any problems, so the SMD-4 does handle 3 MB/s transfer rates. I know the documentation for the SMD-4 says that it will only support up to 2.4 transfer rates, but I called SUN technical support and they said it really does support 3.0 transfer rates. I guess the most convincing argument is the fact that it works fine. Eduardo Krell AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell Internet: ekrell@ulysses.att.com