RE: Replacing a model 270 development machine

Check ebay for used AS/400 drives.  Should be pretty cheap.  Also,
eStorage and probably GST (in addition to IBM) sell used drives.  I'm
sure there are plenty of others as well.

As for a new dev box, I'd check the 520 Value Edition + WDS (if they do
that) or a variation on that theme like the Express Edition.  Not too
horribly expensive for 500 CPWs and you get Power5.  Available rackmount
or desk-side tower.
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/hardware/editions/features_
520.html

Or, consider a 270 to 810 migration if that option is available to you.
I'm not sure how the pricing would work out vs. the 520 but it could be
cheaper.  And an 810 can be upgraded into a 520 later on.

I've never had issues with upgrades.  Done 'em plenty of times of times
without problems.  Our current production box started as a 620, went to
a bigger 620, then a 730, then a bigger 730 and now we're looking at a
570. Never lost a byte of data.  I find it's best to upgrade the old box
to the OS that'll come with the new box and then do 2 21 saves.  Then
restore everything but the OS to the new box.  Basically follow the
Backup & Recovery Guide but omit restoring the OS.

BTW, your drives are all 8GB drives but are in a RAID5 (parity
protection) set; hence the 6GB usable per drive.  The 074 means space
has been set aside for the RAID overhead and the 070 means no space has
been set aside. 

John A. Jones
Americas Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 11:05 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: Replacing a model 270 development machine

Hi All!

 

I'm in a little bit of a quandary here.  My development machine went
into the year-plus category, which means I have to pay a rather steep
maintenance fee.  I'm at the point of deciding what to do about
upgrading.  I'm at the point where the buyout on this machine is
relatively small, and that gives me the peace of mind of having an
older, reliable backup machine.  Throughout the years I have NEVER
managed a complete, clean transfer from one machine to another, for
whatever reason, and I like the idea of keeping the old clunker around.
(I like old clunkers.  I still have my original model 150.)

 

It's a model 270, and the only problems I've ever had with it are the
battery pack and the disk drives.  I replaced the battery pack myself,
and replacing a disk drive doesn't look like rocket science.  The
question is this: are there places to pick up disk drives for this
machine?  They show as four type 6717 model 074 drives (looks like about
6GB capacity) and one type 6717 model 070 (8GB).

 

Then I could gracefully let this one go off maintenance, and get a brand
new development machine.

 

Also, I haven't been following the prices too closely: what's a
reasonable replacement for a 370CPW Model 270?  What's the new
entry-level development box, and how much does it run?


Joe


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