26 Mar
2003
26 Mar
'03
6:24 a.m.
FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the DEC "3 high" rack on Ebay that
includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA, and I have no need for it, I
just want the rack as it's the right height to mate to my 11/44X. If anyone
wants the RA81-HDA, let me know before it gets skipped.
Jay West
26 Mar
26 Mar
7:08 a.m.
On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, Jay West wrote:
FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the DEC
"3 high" rack on Ebay that
includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA, and I have no need for it,
I just want the rack as it's the right height to mate to my 11/44X. If
anyone wants the RA81-HDA, let me know before it gets skipped.
:-) Of my 12 RA81s, 10 or so have Post-it notes saying "Bad HDA". I'm
starting to see a pattern here...
--
Jeffrey Sharp
8:57 a.m.
New subject: RA-81 reliability (was Re: ebay bid on dec rack)
--- Jeffrey Sharp <jss(a)subatomix.com> wrote:
On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, Jay West wrote:
No more than 50% of my RA81s are functional.
We had a customer that complained to DEC that every month they had
a head crash on an RA-81. DEC responded with some statistic about
MTBF. They went back and forth a few times until someone divided
the number of spindles they had into the MTBF number and converted
it to days - it was approximately 30. :-)
The customer elected to go with a smaller number of higher capacity
drives and the problem went away (mostly because the MTBF of later
models was *much* higher per spindle).
There was a notorious problem with a formula change with an adhesive.
I don't recall the HDA rev letter, but drives from the wrong batch
would fail in record time. Big scramble for DEC to plug the gap.
I think I've seen one drive die due to electronic failure, ever.
-ethan
P.S. - Somewhere I have a receipt for one at, IIRC, $26,000. Not my
money, thankfully. They were still a few thousand $$$ in 1988.
FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the
DEC "3 high" rack on Ebay
that
includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA,
and I have no need for
it,
I just want the rack as it's the right height
to mate to my 11/44X. If
anyone wants the RA81-HDA, let me know before it gets skipped.
:-) Of my 12 RA81s, 10 or so have Post-it notes saying "Bad HDA". I'm
starting to see a pattern here... 
27 Mar
27 Mar
12:49 a.m.
New subject: RA-81 reliability (was Re: ebay bid on dec rack)
At 06:54 AM 26/03/2003 -0800, Ethan Dicks wrote:
There was a notorious problem with a formula change
with an adhesive.
I don't recall the HDA rev letter, but drives from the wrong batch
would fail in record time. Big scramble for DEC to plug the gap.
I can certainly confirm that there were significant problems with glue
"migrating" onto the platters in RA81s. At the site I was working at in
about 1982 we ordered two RA81s and suitable controller to augment our
storage - we had an RM80 as system disk and two RM03s for user data - these
were the good old days! These were some of the first RA81s delivered in
Australia - I like to say that we had the first two RA81s in Australia
along with about 10 of the next few shipments as well. It got to the stage
where my Field Service engineer and I could replace an RA81 HDA in about 15
minutes.
I think I've seen one drive die due to electronic
failure, ever.
The most entertaining RA81 failure we had (glue induced failures excepted)
was when the drive select switches on drive 1 failed. The controller
detected duplicate IDs and spun _both_ RA81s down. Took a long while to
work out why every time the second drive was powered up, the first would
spin down....
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au
Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the
Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"
8:08 a.m.
FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the DEC
"3 high" rack on
Ebay that includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA, and
I have no need for it, I just want the rack as it's the right height to
mate to my 11/44X. If anyone wants the RA81-HDA, let me know
before it gets skipped.
Will comply.
Similarly, if anybody wants to subdivide the 8 x RA92 rack
with me that's fine. I only want 2 or 4 max, but let me know.
John A.
12:49 p.m.
Jay,
I have one of these minus the RA81 you have for free
in Menlo Park area. Note its missing a top cover and a
front panel. Well almost free - you have to pick up.
Email me if interested.
Lee Courtney
--- Jay West <jwest(a)kwcorp.com> wrote:
FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the DEC
"3
high" rack on Ebay that
includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA, and I
have no need for it, I
just want the rack as it's the right height to mate
to my 11/44X. If anyone
wants the RA81-HDA, let me know before it gets
skipped.
Jay West
28 Mar
28 Mar
1:09 p.m.
New Jersey or California?
Peace... Sridhar
On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, lee courtney wrote:
Jay,
I have one of these minus the RA81 you have for free
in Menlo Park area. Note its missing a top cover and a
front panel. Well almost free - you have to pick up.
Email me if interested.
Lee Courtney
--- Jay West <jwest(a)kwcorp.com> wrote:
> FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the DEC "3
> high" rack on Ebay that
> includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA, and I
> have no need for it, I
> just want the rack as it's the right height to mate
> to my 11/44X. If anyone
> wants the RA81-HDA, let me know before it gets
> skipped.
>
> Jay West
3:24 p.m.
So, did you end up getting this rack? I have enough RA8x but one of them
needs the big Capacitor that will (hopefully) make it spin up again.
So, if you have any spare ...
Also, I have 2 racks one half high and another full height, of mid 90s
StorageWorks gear, just the racks. I am too embarrassed to ask if
anyone wants them, but they do go to the scrap yard soon. Indianapolis
is the place.
thanks
-Gunther
Jay West wrote:
FYI - I'm likely going to be bidding on the DEC
"3 high" rack on Ebay that
includes an RA81. The RA81 is missing the HDA, and I have no need for it, I
just want the rack as it's the right height to mate to my 11/44X. If anyone
wants the RA81-HDA, let me know before it gets skipped.
Jay West
7946
days inactive
7948
days old
7 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
allain＠panix.com -
charlesleecourtney＠yahoo.com -
erd_6502＠yahoo.com -
gunther＠aurora.regenstrief.org -
Huw.Davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au -
jss＠subatomix.com -
jwest＠kwcorp.com -
vance＠neurotica.com