LWONG@UVPHYS.BITNET (12/07/90)
We are looking into buying a DN10000 but need lots of disk space. I understand that it comes with an ESDI controller from which I can attach up to 4 disks. I've also been told that ESDI disks do not come larger than 700 MB. Can someone confirm or deny this? What do I do if I want more disk space than 4 * 700 MB. Can I purchase another ESDI controller? THanks, Lynda.
rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) (12/07/90)
I have looked at a lot of machines, and for floating point performance, if you get all four processors and especially if you count on the new 2x processor upgrade, the 10k is a very fine piece of hardware. To get good performance, you will need to use vector library, or APollo-coded BLAS calls, unless the new compilers are a lot better than mine. However: (get out your ear trumpets, HP), THE DISKS cripple the DN10k. It is not impossible, but it is difficult to get third party ESDI disks for the 10k. HP/APollo doesn't do anything to make this any easier. If you buy disks from HP/Apollo, even with University discount, you will pay about as much for your 2.8GB as SCSI users pay for 10GB. If you want to hang other SCSI devices off the machine, like optical drives or Exabytes, you need to deal with a custom software/hardware house, like Workstation Solutions. I don't know anybody who has cracked the 2.8GB barrier on the 10k. It is a crippling limitation, and the main reason the 10k is not the clear choice for the data server for our Cloud and Climate center here at U of C. For my 10k, I use NFS and hang SCSI disks of a Sparc330. You get a performance hit, a big one, for using the network though. For the 10k to remain a viable machine, HP/APOLLO MUST RELEASE a VME/AT BUS SCSI BOARD AND SET OF DRIVERS. There is no way this machine will remain competitive otherwise. .
thompson@ELROND.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) (12/07/90)
> We are looking into buying a DN10000 but need lots of disk space. > I understand that it comes with an ESDI controller from which I > can attach up to 4 disks. I've also been told that ESDI disks > do not come larger than 700 MB. > > Can someone confirm or deny this? What do I do if I want more > disk space than 4 * 700 MB. Can I purchase another ESDI > controller? To the best of my knowledge, HP/Apollo (really, Apollo for this) only supports _2_ drives per controller. You can put in 4 controllers though, for 8 total drives. At the current (700MB) disk sizes, that gives 5.4GB (formatted available disk space) if you use all 8. Note that you will need the external cabinet for this (internal takes up to 4 drives). Rumour has it that you can put (and HP/Apollo might start to support) _6_ controllers in the VME bus, as long as you have the IBM token-ring (Apollo ring and Ethernet use a VME slot, and you have only 6 total). With 5 controllers you'd get 6.7GB, and with 6 controllers (and the IBM ring - yuck!) you'd get 8.1GB. In the future, we are supposed to be able to put in much larger disks. I've heard 18GB being bounced around as the upper limit come late Q1 of 1991. "Talk with your local Apollo System Engineer." -- jt -- John Thompson (jt) Honeywell, SSEC Plymouth, MN 55441 thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com As ever, my opinions do not necessarily agree with Honeywell's or reality's. (Honeywell's do not necessarily agree with mine or reality's, either)
hanche@imf.unit.no (Harald Hanche-Olsen) (12/08/90)
In article <1990Dec7.034301.29493@midway.uchicago.edu> rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) writes:
I have looked at a lot of machines, and for floating point performance,
if you get all four processors and especially if you count on the
new 2x processor upgrade, the 10k is a very fine piece of hardware.
[...]
However: (get out your ear trumpets, HP), THE DISKS cripple the
DN10k.
Just adding my two cents' worth here: Yes, for floating point it's a
great machine. However I am not impressed with its interactive
response when used by several users simultaneously. Apparently task
switching is not done frequently enough, or the algorithms for doing
so are suboptimal, for the interactive response drops rapidly as the
load average rises. As a heavy duty number cruncher for use by a
limited number of individuals ata time, however, it is fine. What do
they sell for these days, by the way? Unless the price is way down
from what ours cost two years ago, it does not really seem such great
value for money any more, with everybody selling fast RISC machines at
almost PC prices.
- Harald Hanche-Olsen <hanche@imf.unit.no>
Division of Mathematical Sciences
The Norwegian Institute of Technology
N-7034 Trondheim, NORWAYgoldfish@CONCOUR.CS.CONCORDIA.CA (-- Paul Goldsmith) (12/08/90)
| For the 10k to remain a viable machine, HP/APOLLO MUST RELEASE | a VME/AT BUS SCSI BOARD AND SET OF DRIVERS. There is no way | this machine will remain competitive otherwise. Machine gun by HP; Foot by Apollo; Bullets by DEC, SUN, IBM, etc ... Isn't that what we have been complaining about? -- Paul Goldsmith <goldfish@concour.cs.concordia.ca> (514) 848-3031 (Shirley Maclaine told me there would be LIFETIMES like this)