eidem@itk.unit.no (Kjell Eidem) (03/26/90)
Thanks to all who responded to my question about HP 97540 series SCSI disks. Here is a short summary: the HP drives are very good drives... with the help of HP we have tested them on: Sun 3/60, 4/60. HP 345,340,370. DEC vaxstation 3100, DECstations 3100. Apple MAC's and PC with WD8000 FASS controler.... we had problem with early version of the microcode with some of the above but HP has fixed all of the problems. The drive has a 5yr warranty.... cost is $2200 to $2800 Yes; we like the new HP drives! We've been using a 97548 SCSI pretty hard for about 6mo with no major problems. We had one bad block come out (simple format repair) and it occasionally "loses" the disk label on reboot. We're quite happy to put up with that at 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the equivalent Sun disk. We use several HP 97548 S/D drives that are 793 MB unformatted. I don't know if this is the same device as yours. It works at a SUN-3/60 SUN-3/160 and SUN-3/260. The only thing you have to do is to disable the SDTR message (jumper 2 open). Our drives came with the jumper enabled. We use them for three months now without any faults. That would be the 97448, 660 Mb formatted. They work fine. We sell em for $2200 each (bare drive cost) if you are interested... The 5 year warranty is a pretty good selling point. I run one on my own Sun as well. We bought two of these disks 4 months ago and got them set up on our 2 3/60s. After some initial trouble getting the kernal changes and format parameters correct, they have been running flawlessly since. We have no performance stats, however. Both disks are pounded mercilessly all day and night. BTW, negotiate the price - we got a salesman to drop from $3300 to $2700 (each) at the mere mention that we had received a cheaper price from someone else. Kjell Eidem <eidem@itk.unit.no> Sintef Automatic Control The Technical University of Norway Trondheim, Norway.