[COFF] Disk Technology was [Simh] Which PDP-11 to choose

From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Subject: [COFF] Disk Technology was [Simh] Which PDP-11 to choose
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2019 15:58:45 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp9TYLquL=6QSNgAqdtwym9VnyFK96-+EwYOnK3=f7Sbrg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <00c901d530db$cf7b40f0$6e71c2d0$@twsoft.co.uk>

I don't have authoritative info on the cause, I'm just repeating what I
heard. A highly viscous substance like glue would explain why it took so
long to fail. In any event, it was nasty. Worked perfectly long enough to
build confidence, then failed spectacularly. It was widespread. I entered a
"Sysadmin Horror Story" contest at a USENIX (San Diego?), and won with a
"short story" entry: *Supereagles*. I still have the shark's tooth trophy.

On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 9:41 AM Tim Wilkinson <tjw at twsoft.co.uk> wrote:

>
>
> Interesting that it was the platter bonding. The explanation SI gave us
> (They sold us the super Eagles along with their controller) was that it was
> a lubricant. So I had assumed a bearing seal fail.
>
>
>
> Anyway after about 4 swap outs and a lot of lifting they lasted a further
> 15 years until we knocked down the office with the original 750 and its big
> brother an 8810 still in the computer room as all the resellers wanted
> certificates of continuing maintenance that would have cost more than they
> were willing to pay for those vaxs.
>
>
>
> *From:* John P. Linderman [mailto:jpl.jpl at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 02 July 2019 12:47
> *To:* Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com>
> *Cc:* Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>; Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org>;
> COFF <coff at minnie.tuhs.org>; Tim Wilkinson <tjw at twsoft.co.uk>
> *Subject:* Re: [COFF] Disk Technology was [Simh] Which PDP-11 to choose
>
>
>
> There were eagles, and then there were super-eagles. Our experience with
> eagles was great, and we were eager to try the (larger) super-eagles. We
> soaked them for a month or so, then put them into production use.
> Whereupon, they started dropping like flies. It turns out the glue they
> used to attach the platters to the spindle slowly crept out over time,
> eventually coming to grief with a read/write head. This experience was
> wide-spread, and seriously damaged Fujitsu's reputation.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 10:11 AM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 09:49:42AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> >  An Eagle or Eagle-II was a whole lot lighter (and physically smaller)
> than
> > an RP06 or RP07 (or an RM series drive for that matter). It is
> interesting
> > to hear you had problems with the Eagles.   They were generally
> considered
> > the best/most reliable of the day.   The SI controller on the Vax was
> less
> > so, although many of us in the UNIX community used them.
>
> We ran Eagles on the Masscomps we had at Geophysics.  Nothing but good
> things to say about those drives.
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