[SunRescue] Q: Regarding Sun Educator promo Ultra 5 system

[nick at ns.snowman.net]

The u5 (to the best of my knowledge) uses a thing called EDO Dimms.  EDO
dimms are evil.  The only reason they were ever created is sdram failed to
add something on the order of 2 pins so interleaving could be done.  This
means that while sdram is faster 1 on 1, when you boost it up to 1 on 5
(interleaved 5 times) or 1 on 10 (interleaved 10 times) sdram looses.
Badly.  So EDO dimms are used (this provides the advantage to sun that
they can ream you for memory, but not as badly as truly proprietary
stuff).  As to Western Digital drives, I've had great luck with them, and
they take their drives back!  I know this is a shock to anyone who's tried
to rma a Seagate or Fujitsu drive.  You call the number, give them your
serial num, your date code, and if it's within 3 or 5 years (depending on
drive) they'll ship you a new one.  That's it.  It's great!
	Nick

On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Paul Khoury wrote:

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Hansen <n2vip at impop.bellatlantic.net>
> To: rescue at sunhelp.org <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2000 10:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [SunRescue] Q: Regarding Sun Educator promo Ultra 5 system
> 
> 
> >I've gotten several replies, thanks to all for your input.
> >
> >I am leaning toward getting the machine (I believe the offer runs until
> >the end of June, 2000) but the various posts have peaked my curiosity:
> >
> >    - Does this have *any* SCSI subsystem? If not, what known good
> >      SCSI cards will it take (Adaptec? Other?)
> >
> 
> Unfortunately, no.  I believe you need something like NCR/Symbios Logic or
> Adaptec, and they oly give you either 2 or 3 PCI slots to work with.
> 
> >    - How proprietary is the RAM on this unit? Is additional memory
> >      *real* expensive (like SS/5 RAM, go figure!) or reasonable, like
> >      (PC RAM)?
> 
> 
> I think it uses regular EDO DRAM, but I could be (and probably am) wrong.
> >
> >    - I may have a line on a low-cost Sun PCi card (400 Mhz AMD K5-2
> >      w/64 Meg RAM) - nearly half-price (I hope). If I can get one of those
> >      boards, the unit becomes quite interesting...
> >
> 
> Go for it, and tell us which OSes it supports.  I wish I even had a 486
> card in my SS2 =)
> 
> 
> 
> >    - Drive reliability - are the included IDE drives really that bad (and
> >break
> >      inside warranty period)?
> >
> 
> Does anyone know what brand of drives these are?  From the reliability
> standpoint, I'm starting to think these are Western Analog drives... =)
> 
> Paul
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rescue maillist  -  Rescue at sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>