Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!EMX.UTEXAS.EDU!herzlich
From: herzlich@EMX.UTEXAS.EDU (Larry Herzlich)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: EXSYS Race disk drives (too good to be true?)
Message-ID: <8804191622.AA06747@emx.utexas.edu>
Date: 19 Apr 88 16:22:42 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 48

As our machine room gets filled with the old 780's in the Comp. Center,
we are running out of room for disk.  We are considering a new product
from a company in CA called "EXSYS RACE-760".  EXSYS claims to have
a package where 4 of their drives occupy the same space as 1 RA81.  Each
drive is 760MB unformatted (587MB VMS formatted) and is supposed to 
be plug compatible with our HSC50's.  Their controller is supposed to
convert from ESDI to SDI and back.  The disks they use are the MAXTOR 760's
(the 5 1/4" drives).

Although the transfer rate is less than an RA81 (15Mb/sec vs 1.4MB/sec for
an RA81) they claim the actual performance is about equal due to their 18ms
average access time (versus 30ms RA81 access times).

Soooo, what's the problem? 

	1. Am I missing something?  This seems too good to be true - 
	   ~2.4GB of storage in an RA slot.  Similar performance specs
	   at a fraction of the cost (~10K per drive/controller/power/cables)

	2. What about changes to firmware as DEC gets further into OLTP
	   (online transaction processing)?  Am I going to get screwed by
	   changes in the HSC microcode, changes to MSCP, changes to the 
	   RA disk layout?  HSC v3.70 is released, any problems?

	   Aside: Has anyone written into a contract a warranty for *all*
	   ECO's/FCO's that might be needed if DEC changes something that
	   causes the 3rd party disk to break?  We are even considering
	   requiring them to supply us with equivalent DEC hardware should
	   they not be able to continue working with the HSC50, for 5 years.

	3. Is DEC going to sue these guys for running SDI/ESDI disks?  I don't
	   know if any of the disk architectures are proprietary.

	4. Are there other disk drive/controller combinations that directly
	   plug into the HSC50?  I've seen lots of good drives, CDC, FUJITSU,
	   NEC, but they all need a controller to plug into the system.  We
	   feel the HSC50 is one of DEC's best products and don't want to go
	   back to UDA50's or equivalents.

BTW, EXSYS is supposed to stand for EXcellent SYStems.  Actually, these
engineers are ex-System Industries employees.

----
Larry Herzlich				herzlich@emx.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin		CCCS001@UTADNX  -- BITnet
Computation Center 			UTSPAN::UTAIVC::CCCS001 (SPAN)
User Services Division			..!seismo!ut-sally!ut-emx!herzlich
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