[comp.unix.ultrix] SCSI Drives for a DECSystem 3100 -- suggestions?

berman@sparky.rutgers.edu (Michael Berman) (11/16/90)

We have a DECSystem 3100 (essentially equivalent to a
DECStation 3100) and need to add disk space.  I'd appreciate
very much hearing of any experiences, good or bad, you may
have had with adding such drives.  In particular, I assume I
can get more bytes for the buck with a third party solution,
but I want to make sure it's going to work without a hassle.
I'd be interested both in names of drives and suggestions for
vendors to buy them from.  Thanks.

loganj@yvax.byu.edu (11/17/90)

We have two DS3100's booting from 600 MB HP (HP97548) drives and two other
DS3100's booting from 1.2 GB HP (HP97549) drives.  These are SCSI drives
with five year warranties.  So far we haven't had any problems, but it's
more difficult to install Ultrix on these drives since Dec's installation
process doesn't recognize the drives:  We simply did a dump/restore from
an existing system on Dec disks to the the HP disks, then booted right
off of the HP disks and reconfigured the system.

We obtained the 600 MB HP97548 drives for $2835 and the 1.2GB HP97549 for
$3735 from Anthem Electronics of Salt Lake City, phone (801) 973-8555.
These are complete external disk drives (box, power supply, SCSI device
selector, ...).  We have no relationship with Anthem except as satisfied
customer.

Regards,
jim
loganj@yvax.byu.edu
loganj@byuvax.bitnet

pavlov@canisius.UUCP (Greg Pavlov) (11/18/90)

In article <1816loganj@yvax.byu.edu>, loganj@yvax.byu.edu writes:
> We have two DS3100's booting from 600 MB HP (HP97548) drives and two other
> DS3100's booting from 1.2 GB HP (HP97549) drives......
> it's more difficult to install Ultrix on these drives since Dec's installation
> process doesn't recognize the drives: 
> 
  ...and they are (supposedly) impossible to use as boot disks under version 4
     ULTRIX.  HP (factory/engineer/salestypes at HP's primary disk facilities
     in Boise, Idaho) promise that a prom upgrade will be released soon that
     will provide relief.

> We obtained the 600 MB HP97548 drives for $2835 and the 1.2GB HP97549 for
> $3735 from Anthem Electronics of Salt Lake City, phone (801) 973-8555.


   The 660MB drives can be purchased for several hundred less (complete with
   box, cable, et al) from Applied Digital or MaxComp computers in Rochester,
   NY.

   - Applied Digital also will add (for extra cost) an externally-accessible
     SCSI "address" set.  It's a thumbwheel switch; very useful, keeps one from
     having to open the box and playing with jumpers.


   greg pavlov, fstrf, amherst, ny

riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) (11/21/90)

In article <3017@canisius.UUCP> pavlov@canisius.UUCP (Greg Pavlov) writes:
>In article <1816loganj@yvax.byu.edu>, loganj@yvax.byu.edu writes:
>> We have two DS3100's booting from 600 MB HP (HP97548) drives and two other
>> DS3100's booting from 1.2 GB HP (HP97549) drives......
>> it's more difficult to install Ultrix on these drives since Dec's installation
>> process doesn't recognize the drives: 

>  ...and they are (supposedly) impossible to use as boot disks under version 4
>     ULTRIX.  HP (factory/engineer/salestypes at HP's primary disk facilities
>     in Boise, Idaho) promise that a prom upgrade will be released soon that
>     will provide relief.

We have several DS3100's booting Ultrix 4.0 off of HP97548S drives
with no problems (the HPs are rev B940, and the DS3100s are pretty
old--before DEC stripped most of the useful help messages out of the
boot proms).

There is a problem with DS5000s--the original DS5000 boot proms
refuse to recognize the HP drives (the system hangs if you do a "cnfg 5" 
or try to boot from one of the HP drives), so you can't boot *any*
version of Ultrix off an HP connected to a DS5000 with the original
boot proms.

We just received our first DS5000s with the new proms.  These at least
acknowledge that the HPs exist.  I haven't (yet) tried building a bootable
system on one of the HPs, but it looks like it should work.

We don't (yet) have any HP97549s to play with, but you'd think they'd
behave much the same as the 97548s.

-Dan Riley (riley@theory.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley)
-Wilson Lab, Cornell University

NEUMANN@awiwuw11.wu-wien.ac.at (Gustaf Neumann) (11/22/90)

>  ...and they are (supposedly) impossible to use as boot disks under version 4
>     ULTRIX.  HP (factory/engineer/salestypes at HP's primary disk facilities

>We have several DS3100's booting Ultrix 4.0 off of HP97548S drives
>with no problems (the HPs are rev B940, and the DS3100s are pretty
>old--before DEC stripped most of the useful help messages out of the
>boot proms).
>
>There is a problem with DS5000s--the original DS5000 boot proms
>refuse to recognize the HP drives (the system hangs if you do a "cnfg 5"
>or try to boot from one of the HP drives), so you can't boot *any*
>version of Ultrix off an HP connected to a DS5000 with the original
>boot proms.
>
>We just received our first DS5000s with the new proms...

We made similar experiences here. We could boot Ultrix 4.0 from
a HP97548SU (rev. C033) disk on a
 - a DS3100 (must be a newer model, no "useful help messages")                 m
 - a DS5000/200 using the newer firmware level V5.3c (aka: new                 m
   boot proms)
but NOT
 - a DS5000/200 using the original firmware level.                             m

Somewhat different is the situation with Hitachi DK515C (rev CP16):
works with
 - DS3100
 - DS5000/200 with OLD bootproms
but NOT with
 - a DS5000/200 with firmware level V5.3c!!                                    m

The CDC 94181-15 (rev 0293) works with DS3100 and DS5000/200 with new
boot proms.

Hope this helps a little.
-gustaf