Heh... I've got a pair of the rack units in the storage area off the deck, each has one shelf for HSZ50's, and three for disks. I powered one up once in the apartment, way to noisy, way to much power. Besides, I've only got 4GB drives for both of them, so for the cost of powering one of them I could probably buy a pair of 70GB+ disks and shadow them. My VMS server is just fine with a 36GB system disk and 3 4GB disks, I've been seriously considering moving all the data to the 36GB disk, but I like the safety the 4GB disks give (easier backups, and I can volume shadow them, though only one is at the moment). Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

The scarry thing is the quieter 3.5" x 1" drives I mentioned replacing the full height 5 1/4" drives with are Seagate 2GB Barracuda's! BTW, let me guess, the machine you had the misfortune to use was a Sun Pizzabox, right? Those suckers are noisy with the Barracuda's! Nonsense, it just means you still have some of your hearing :^) Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

der Mouse wrote: Something as recent a 2G Barracuda would certainly qualify as non-preferable noise. A bunch of RA-80s or RK-5s, though, would be a sound of beauty.

I had, for a brief period, a Seagate Barracuda half-height 4GB drive in my Power Mac 7300. The drive sounded as if it were going into orbit every time it started up, and reduced my apartment heating bill by 50%. Naturally, it overheated within the 7300 in mere months, despite heroic efforts to jury rig better ventilation. I also have 2GB and 18GB Barracuda third-heights, and they aren't all that loud. I think it's just the half-heights that were amazingly noisy. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- CONJUGATION OF THE HULKING ENTOMOLOGIST: I big / I bag / I have bug --------

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, der Mouse wrote: Barracudas came in 1.6" and 1" form factors. The 1.6 ones made lots of singing, whiny noise.. the 1" ones (the -L or -LP ones) didn't. Also, DEC used a lot of 2G disks from the HAWK line, whuch were 5400rpm drives, contrary to the Barra's 7200rpm. Sun pretty much only used Hawk's- also, because the Barra's got too hot in the lunchbox cases :) I havea lead to about 500 of em. Just gotta close that deal, and go get em... all -LP ones. --f -- Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist Visit the VAXlab Project at http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/ Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/ Email: waltje(a)pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA