Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!ulysses!gatech!seismo!brl-adm!rutgers!husc6!sri-unix!sri-spam!brunner From: brunner@sri-spam.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.graphics,comp.unix.questions,comp.sys.misc Subject: Re: Silicon Graphics Iris 3130 Reliability Message-ID: <9914@sri-spam.istc.sri.com> Date: Wed, 4-Mar-87 22:19:53 EST Article-I.D.: sri-spam.9914 Posted: Wed Mar 4 22:19:53 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Mar-87 00:03:44 EST References: <4916@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Reply-To: brunner@sri-spam.UUCP (Thomas Eric Brunner) Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park Lines: 39 Keywords: Iris,Silicon Graphics Xref: utgpu comp.graphics:346 comp.unix.questions:1267 comp.sys.misc:413 In article <4916@bu-cs.BU.EDU> mike@bucasb.UUCP (Michael Cohen) writes: >Please let me know what you know about the reliability >of the Iris Silicon Graphics workstations. I heard that >the system reliability is very low via rumor posted on >INFO - IRIS. Please let me know as reliability is an >issue and we may purchase shortly. I don't read INFO - IRIS, sorry I can't scan your rumor. When I worked at SGI the 3030 model (68020 w/ large disks) in my office failed _very_ frequently, like twice a day - here failure is defined as a _very_ reliable hardware _freak_ event, thought to be due to design errors in the power subsystem, no, bogus disk controllers, no,... there was no known answer before I left the company. Most of the 10 or so new machines in the same area of the company (kernel group) were equally eventfull. We all sighed and rebooted, hardware was not our dept... Please note that this was the view of a neo-dozen production machines of the 3030 model, all with a similar date of production, summer 1986, and all kept with in a small portion of the 2nd floor of the engineering bldg of the Stierlin Road site. Maybe they got fixed, maybe you are referring to some other model. I would look elsewhere, of course, my reasons are not necessarily the same as yours. I take into consideration the system software because that seems to me as important as the window manager and the pixel painting primitives Due to the SGI-only XNS dependency, and the TCP-on-a card of the 1986 IRIS, it is a very hard machine to use in a distributed workstation environment, where some of the workstations just happen to be very sharp color graphics boxes. I think that is what is important in my site's long term, and in just about any hetrogeneous, open site, so I don't think about the IRIS seriously. I'm making that point to the Navy - who wish to use it for a _very_ snazy mailer system - they saw the SGI demos, not the network nor the "useability". -- how about a great big spidery "X"?