Responses to My Disk Query

[Frank W. Peters]

I recently posted a query regarding third party disks for the Sun.  My was
in two parts.

>We are currently looking into the purchase of a local disk for one of our
>diskless 3/50s.  We would like to get 300 to 500 meg or so.  Does anyone
>have any recommendation of a good third party drive in this size range (or
>horror stories about one we should NOT get)?
__________

wizard!neil at uunet.UU.NET (Neil Gorsuch), from Uninet Peripherals, had this to
say about their products:

Uninet Peripherals sells 600 Mb CDC Wren V 16.5 mS shoeboxes with
a full 2 year warranty for $4100, or only $3600 for factory warranties
only (90 days or 1 year, I forget which).  These are plug and play
SCSI compatible.  I can give you many references to call who will
enthusastically endorse our products.  A 300 Mb 17 mS shoebox with full
2 year warranty is $2400.  If you want to buy the disks by themselves
without power suypply, FCC class A rated enclosure, cables, etc., it's
$3600 for 600 Mb with 2 year warranty, $1900 for the 300 Mb with a 2 year
warranty.  Call me at (800) 433-6784 if you want to talk about this.
(Or at (714) 547-3000 if you are in California.)
__________

celeste at coherent.com (Celeste C. Stokely) had this to say:

I've got a whole bunch of Wren IV (300MB+ drives) from Parity Systems on
my 3/60s. They work fabulously!
...
Parity sells (or is about to sell) larger SCSI drives, also.
...
Parity is in Los Gatos, CA, at (408) 354-1500.
__________

Micky Liu <micky at cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> had this to say:

We've bought a couple of 380M drives from BoxHill Systems and are very
pleased with the drives and the service they've provided.  They came at a
time when we were very pressured to produce.  Sun told us delivery in
several months and their quote was way too high.  BoxHill delivered in
about three days at half the price! (and their tech guy came and installed
everything) ...  My contact there is Carol Turchin and her numbers are
(212) 399-4770 and (800) 727-3863.
__________

Shortly after I got this note I received a call From Ms. Turchin who
indicated that a 760Meg drive would cost approximately $5,000 (about what
Sun wants for a 320Meg).

My second query was regarding the usability of an external disk on our 3/160
at some point in the future.  I wrote:

>Another,related, question:  The project for which we are buying this disk
>is temporary.  We would like, if possible, to be able to attach the disk
>to a server (probably a 3/160) after completion of the project.  Can a
>disk made for the external SCSI connector on a 3/50 be connected to the
>internal connector of the 3/160 (sun claims not) and if not, why?

Neil Gorsuch sumarized the responses to this question in three words:

"NONSENSE, NONSENSE, NONSENSE."

He went on to say:
                                ...We have already sold these same drives
to be put in deskside enclosures off of an internal SCSI port.  We
can even make the cables for you if you want (we already have for others).
__________

Peter Ilieve <mcvax!memex.co.uk!peter at uunet.UU.NET> had a rather interesting
response:

This is possible, but involves more hardware hacking than most people
may want to do, hence Sun's claim that it is impossible.
...
We use a Rodime 140MB disk, designed as a Mac external disk drive, and
it works well (although this is not really a response to your disk
reccomendation question as 140MB is too small).
...
The hard part is making a connecting cable. The cable inside the 3/160 is
a 50 way ribbon. We had to make a new cable that had a male ribbon cable
header on one end, to connect to the Sun cable, then a normal ribbon cable
header, to connect to the 3/160 innards, then on the other end whatever
connector your disk needs. When you have made this, go inside the 3/160
and find the end of the SCSI ribbon cable (either on the disk or tape
board in the top of the cabinet). Unplug it and plug it into your new
cable, plugging your new cable into whatever you removed the Sun cable
from.  The only other thing is you must remove the SCSI terminators from
whatever was on the end of the Sun cable.
__________

While the use of Mac disk isn't (as Mr. Ilieve indicated) appropriate for
our purposes (though there ARE 300+ meg disks out there for the Mac) I
think the use of Mac disks is, in general, a neat idea.

Bennett Todd <bet at orion.mc.duke.edu> says:

                                  ...You can purchase (for a fairly
modest sum, I think less than $100) a kit from Delta Microsystems that
connects to the internal SCSI cable on a Sun 3/160 or suchlike pedestal
system, and brings it out to a standard Sun external connector on the
back.
__________

Several others sent messages indicating the option of buying an external SCSI
board from Sun.

My thanks to everyone who responded.  If anyone has any further
suggestions or comments feel free to send them along to me.  And I don't
mind hearing from vendors, so don't be shy.

	Frank Peters

Systems Programmer                 |   Mississippi State University
Phone:    (601) 325-2942           |   Computing Center and Services
Internet:  peters at CC.MsState.Edu   |   Post Office Drawer CC
BITNET:    PETERS at MSSTATE.BITNET   |   Mississippi State, MS.  39762