A Vax Question

[alex-16]

Hi,
A fit of nostalgia has convinced me to drag out my Microvax II when I
get home this weekend to see if it still fires up, and to try to put
some OS or other (unix) on it.  My main question is, what is a good
solution for storage on these machines these days? It currently has 4
RD54s (1 dead) on an RQDX3, though I wonder if there's something better
available at a reasonable price? I tried going the NFS root a while
back, though I got extremely slow performance out of the Deqna controler
(about 200kb/s transfer).  Is this normal?

Another somewhat less important question is I had an interesting issue
with the tqk50 controler last time I tried using it...NetBSD could read
and write to tapes fine, but the drive was not seen by the boot rom (I
seem to recall just getting devoffline everytime I tried booting from
it).  Anyone know what could cause this? I will provide more information
on the problem when I get home and have a chance to pull the machine out
and take a look.



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[Steven M Jones]

alex@... wrote:
> My main question is, what is a good
> solution for storage on these machines these days? It currently has 4
> RD54s (1 dead) on an RQDX3, though I wonder if there's something better
> available at a reasonable price?

That depends a great deal on what you consider reasonable. Working RD54s
tend to bring high prices on eBay, which might fund your other storage
options.

SCSI disk controllers (some are limited via firmware to tape only) are
also expensive, but are probably your most flexible choice.

ESDI controllers are available, but the availability and remaining
service life of drives is an open question.

DSSI controllers are available, and used drives can still be found. But
again, how long will the drives last? They haven't been manufactured for
some time. A twist would be to get a KFQSA DSSI controller and something
like an HSD05 or HSD10 DSSI-SCSI bridge, you can put the HSD into a
BA350 SCSI shelf and use SCSI drives via DSSI. Note that I haven't tried
this, though I grabbed some HSDs a while back to try it out someday.

You _could_ get yourself a KDA50 and hook up an RA-series drive, but
consider the impact to your power bill as well as availability of
spares, etc.

> I tried going the NFS root a while
> back, though I got extremely slow performance out of the Deqna controler
> (about 200kb/s transfer).  Is this normal?
>  
The DEQNA was not really considered a great performer. That said, if
they'd received the appropriate ECOs over the years I found them to be
reliable controllers within their limitations.

The DEQNA was replaced by the DELQA, the best variant of which was
supposed to be the DELQA-YM. No recollection of any comparison numbers
though.

--Steve.
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[Jochen Kunz]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:53:10 -0400
alex@... wrote:

> My main question is, what is a good
> solution for storage on these machines these days?
In addition to what Steven wrote:
http://www.mscpscsi.com/

> It currently has 4
> RD54s (1 dead) on an RQDX3, though I wonder if there's something
> better available at a reasonable price?
Most likely not as the RD54 will cost you nothing. Just use them.

> I tried going the NFS root a
> while back, though I got extremely slow performance out of the Deqna
> controler (about 200kb/s transfer).  Is this normal?
Get a DELQA.
--


tsch__,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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[Erie Patsellis]

Steven M Jones wrote:

> alex@... wrote:
>> My main question is, what is a good solution for storage on these
>> machines these days? It currently has 4 RD54s (1 dead) on an RQDX3,
>> though I wonder if there's something better available at a reasonable
>> price?
>
> That depends a great deal on what you consider reasonable. Working
> RD54s tend to bring high prices on eBay, which might fund your other
> storage options.
>
> SCSI disk controllers (some are limited via firmware to tape only) are
> also expensive, but are probably your most flexible choice.
>
> ESDI controllers are available, but the availability and remaining
> service life of drives is an open question.
>
> DSSI controllers are available, and used drives can still be found.
> But again, how long will the drives last? They haven't been
> manufactured for some time. A twist would be to get a KFQSA DSSI
> controller and something like an HSD05 or HSD10 DSSI-SCSI bridge, you
> can put the HSD into a BA350 SCSI shelf and use SCSI drives via DSSI.
> Note that I haven't tried this, though I grabbed some HSDs a while
> back to try it out someday.
>
> You _could_ get yourself a KDA50 and hook up an RA-series drive, but
> consider the impact to your power bill as well as availability of
> spares, etc.
>
>> I tried going the NFS root a while back, though I got extremely slow
>> performance out of the Deqna controler (about 200kb/s transfer).  Is
>> this normal?
>>  
> The DEQNA was not really considered a great performer. That said, if
> they'd received the appropriate ECOs over the years I found them to be
> reliable controllers within their limitations.
>
> The DEQNA was replaced by the DELQA, the best variant of which was
> supposed to be the DELQA-YM. No recollection of any comparison numbers
> though.
>
> --Steve.
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
>

Going from memory, (and it's been a lot of years), the biggest issue we
had (DEC-ENO) with the KDA50's was some odd compatibility problem (at
least when I left in '86 or so) RA80 and 81's would work other might
work. I know there were several ECL gate array revisions in a very short
period of time, and it resolved some of the compatibility issues. (don't
remember if it was a rolling change or an ECO) I havent' seen many RD
series drives at all lately, worse case, the RD53's were micropolis
1325, IIRC. At one time, I had a handful of RD54's on an RLL controller,
1G of storage sure seemed like an endless supply once upon a time.

Been a long while since I've even seen any of the DSSI bits, We had
numerous HSC50s and 70s fully loaded with every port loaded in our final
test area. I'm far from a factory labor type person, but that's one job
(and while Ken was still at the helm) a company that I truly miss.

erie
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