CDC 9720-1230 experience

[Owen DeLong]

The following is based entirely on my experience at another company, and
in no way represents or indicates any statement by Sun Microsystems.

The CDC 9720-1230 disk drive is an excellent drive.  It performs
beautifully, consumes minimal power, and transfers lightning quick.  Here
are the caveats:

#1:  You cannot use the SUN XD7053, you need a Xylogics 753 certified for
the 3.0 transfer rate.  The SUN controllers don't always have drivers
which are fast enough for the 3.0 rate.

#2:  Support is a potential pitfall.

I overcame the above obstacles by dealing with Dick Smith at Software
Associates in Sacremento, CA <916-344-5558>.  He sold me a 9720-1230 with
the XY753 and the 6x9 VME-VME adapter, and delivered very quickly.  He
supports the 753 on the basis of a next-day-air simultaneous trade.  We
went to CDC to get on-site maintenance for the drive.  They were quite
helpful, and provided a good indication of excellent response and service.
I don't know how their service actually is at the moment, as we never had
problem one with the drive.  Their service at other installations I have
worked at has always been good in the past.  The simultaneous shipping
problem didn't seem significant, since the system we were using consisted
of the following: xy753	CDC9773 850MB xy0 xy753	CDC9720-1230MB xy4 xy7053
Fuji Super-Eagle xy8

I kept an extra set of cables handy so that I could easily reconfigure xy4
as xy1 and run them both off of the same controller.  Your installation
may not have this luxury, and thus you may want to seek better support for
the controller.