30 Aug
2000
30 Aug
'00
3:28 p.m.
I have two MVIIs so I know what your doing and how
slow slow is. An
aside for tuning, since the system swaps a fair amount (worse at minimal
ram)
a second disk with the PRIMARY page and swap files on it makes a huge
difference. this is more effective if the second disk has it's own
controller.
A good drive for swap/page files is a RD52 (quantum D540) as it's fast
and
easily found (and run forever). Of course space and power for that
dictates
a BA123. The #2 MVII is a ba23 with CMD SCSI for the main drives and
one lonesome RD52 on RQDX3 for standalone backup and page/swap files.
Well, since part of the trick is keeping this as original as possible, I'm
pretty much torn on what to do about drives. I've got three choices.
The system came with a RQDX3 and RD53, as the RD53 is dead I could add a
RD54. Or I could go with a WQESD and either a 150MB or 380MB ESDI drive.
Or a Viking SCSI controller and a RZ25 (with probably a RZ23L for swap). Of
the three I think I like the RD54 and the SCSI solutions best. The SCSI has
the advantage of being able to do away with the TK50 for loading the system.
Also as I understand it moving off of the RQDX3 is the single best thing I
can do to improve system performance. I gather the RQDX3 is only about
600KB/sec, while the ESDI and SCSI controllers be considerably faster and
might come close to saturating the Q-Bus. In fact I gather my Emulex MFM
controller would even do considerably better than the RQDX3.
Oh, the trying to keep it as original as possible means I'm being foolish
and limiting myself to the BA23 with the crippled 5-slot backplane, instead
of replacing the backplane with the 8-slot spare I've got. I've never
claimed this is a rational project :^) so I'll probably go the RQDX3/RD54
route at least to start.
Who knows when I get bored I may pull the VAXstation II/GPX carcass out of
storage and see just how far I can soup it up compared to the
VAXstation II/RC :^)
Zane