Wiley_M_Sanders@cup.portal.com (03/01/89)
I have decided to replace the puny RD53's in my MicroVaxII with an ESDI disk subsystem, but I'm having trouble getting straight answers regarding a couple of questions about DEC service, and compatibility with future versions of VMS. I'll just go down the list: 1) All the 'big' manufacturers are going to be DU-driver compatible with at least versions 4.5 through 5.0-xx of VMS, right? Or am I deluding myself. I'd include the 'biggies' as all the manufacturers I've heard about, i.e. Dilog, Emulex, Andromeda, Micropolis, etc. 2) To optimize backups, I would like to configure the disk (which, within our budget of $5000, will probably be about 320MB formatted) as several, smaller DU-devices. This way I can make several, small image backups of the DU-devices, and not hove to deal with backing up across several TK50's. Does anybody make such a beast? Dilog says that their model MQ696 controller is capable of such a thing, but that the DQ696 (a pretty common model, it seems) is not. Is anybody using a MQ696? What are the tradeoffs involved - the controllers appear to be otherwise identical (except MQ696page controls a floppy, too) 3) Is the term "Category A DEC-service" familiar to anyone? We have DEC- Service on our machine, and my DEC rep says that only some of the manufacturers listed in 1) are "Category A", which means that DEC will service them uncon- ditionally. Other are "Category C", subject to some approval process, and some are not serviceable at all. 4) I have not considered a SCSI system because I didn't receive any quotes back from anyone except Dilog. (SQ-706 controller.) Are SCSI systems going to be more or less reliable than ESDI? I don't particularly want to be on the "cutting edge" of Q-bus SCSI technology (ie compatibility problems.) Also, I have a feeling that SCSI may be a shade slower (we'd have only 1 disk and no tape hooked up.) Are my assumptions correct? Well, if anybody feels like responding, send mail; I'll digest and repost if anyone else is interested. Thanks in advance for your support... -w Center for Urban Analysis County of Santa Clara 70 W Hedding East Wing San Jose CA 95110 (408) 299-3285
pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov) (03/03/89)
In article <15216@cup.portal.com>, Wiley_M_Sanders@cup.portal.com writes: > I have decided to replace the puny RD53's in my MicroVaxII with an ESDI > disk subsystem, but I'm having trouble getting straight answers regarding > a couple of questions about DEC service...... > 3) Is the term "Category A DEC-service" familiar to anyone? We have DEC- >Service on our machine, and my DEC rep says that only some of the manufacturers > listed in 1) are "Category A", which means that DEC will service them uncon- > ditionally. Other are "Category C", subject to some approval process, and some > are not serviceable at all. We have found that regardless of "Class" designation, the local service office is the ultimate determinant whether a particular 3rd party item is serviced or not. If it refuses to do so, you have little recourse unless you are large enough to be important to DEC beyond the local office. In our case for ins- tance, we are small and the local service office is both uncooperative and unresponsive, so we've stopped buying from DEC.