AlphaServer ES47 partitioning

[Ben Huntsman]

Hey guys-
   Anyone on here know much about the Marvel boxes?  I've had one for years but never had much time to fiddle with it.  I'm looking at the partitioning features.  In particular, the manual says:

Hard partitions must be on 2P boundaries
Tru64 only supports hard partitions

   However, I can confirm that you can definitely create a hard partition with a single CPU.  This got me thinking, and I dug a little deeper into the MBM CLI.  The manual seems to suggest that this is the case, but says that the operating system won't work correctly in that configuration.  Anyone know why not?

   When you create a hard partition, you specify what type of subpartition the hard partition can contain.  The manual says that only "soft" partitions are officially supported, but the CLI also allows you to create subpartitions of type "firm" and "semi-firm".  Does anyone know what "firm" and "semi-firm" partitions do differently than soft partitions?  And does Tru64 work with any of that, or is all of that OpenVMS-specific stuff?

   Also, on a side note, I don't suppose anyone here has a rail kit for an ES47 or ES80 they'd like to sell, or an I/O drawer...

Many thanks in advance!

-Ben