RE: EMC DASD (wasCISC to RISC conversion of data)

*snip*

>So, IMHO, the reason 3rd party disk is cheaper, is because IT'S NO
>BLOODY GOOD !!!!

*snip*

>Neil Palmer                                AS/400~~~~~



On the -other- foot, about 10 years ago we had an S/38 and installed EMC
drives.  Worked fine.  Until we discovered, the bad way, that some of the
mechanisms in the drives had problems.

We struck a deal with EMC.  They provided enough extra DASD so we could use
Checksum, plus enough extra memory so we wouldn't take a performance hit.

And their service staff was -very- attentive.

Turns out they had purchased a bad batch of DASD from their supplier.  And
we, of course, had a bunch.

It got to the point that I'd walk into the office in the morning, and
Operations would tell me, "Oh, by the way, we swapped out another disk last
night."  No big deal.

(This is the main reason I wouldn't dream of having a system without RAID
or Mirroring)

The EMC product was sound, worked well with the S/38.  The problem was the
disk units they had received.  And they made good on their product.


Then we went to the AS/400 with (if memory serves) 9335? DASD.  We were
running RAIDed.  And had problems.  IBM checked out the drives, and, one
Thanksgiving, swapped about 1/3 of our disk farm (pumping all the way).


Moving back to the present, we now have 2 model 640s with pure IBM DASD.
And, since it was installed back in December, we've replaced a number of
their drives.  And, since we're running RAID, it's still a minor problem.


The point is that neither company has a exclusive lock on good or bad DASD.
But, in our experience, both have made good on their products.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com



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