[rescue] older IBM PPC inquiry (7015-R50)

[Robert Novak]

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Eric Webb wrote:

> On Thursday 30 January 2003 03:48 pm, Robert Novak wrote:
> >
> > It's an IBM System Rack (a bit less than 6' high) with two 7015-R50
> > powerpc servers (unknown contents--8mm tape and cd and floppy are known)
> > and three 7133-020 disk arrays (SSA it seems, with a full complement of
> > 4gb drives).
> 
> Dayum!  Was this free or something??  Impossible.

I wish. It will probably be "affordable" but not free. I'll find out by
next week.

> > After some poking on ibm's site, it appears these are nearly ten year old
> > SMP PPC601 75MHz servers that run AIX. The rack itself would be cool, and
> 
> Dave is right, I believe -- I have three of these still running in
> full-blown production.  One is a quad 200, the other two are probably
> duals (can't remember right off).

He is, I was dylsexci. 2/4/6/8 604e/200mhz processors, and up to 4gb of
ram per system. And they're only about 120 pounds each.

> > 1. Can these run on 110-120V power inside or outside of the cabinet?
>
> Mine is on 220 for sure.  Didn't think it would do 110, but never looked.

The specs page gives power draw at 110V and 220V, but I will probably go
check it out again and see if it's switchable. 1100 watts at 110V, 13.6A.
Toasty. Probably not a full-time machine for me here in California. :)

> > 2. Are they worth the space/power/time/back pain to get and play with?
> 
> Tons of Microchannel slots, lots of CPU.  I think these will take 4GB
> of RAM.  Very hot, though.  I'd rather have one of the J-series.

Yeah, 1100W, 15 available MCA slots... I think I'd want a SCSI card rather
than messing with the SSA drawers.

It currently looks like even NetBSD does not run on this system... none of
the PPC port pages mention it. Part of this may be the fairly recent
introduction of MCA to NetBSD, and part may be the higher availability of 
Macintosh-type powerpc machines. Note that I'm basing this on a browsing
of the netbsd release web pages, and not on personal experience or any
investigation of what might work with the appropriate chicken entrails. I
did not see any evidence of other *BSD or Linux support for this model.

AIX 4.2 and 5L 5.1 are apparently the OSes of choice for it. Hence my
earlier inquiry about cheaper licenses. My back is twinging at the whole
moving of the array... but I think if I load it in the middle of my
van[0], I can cart all 700 pounds of it.


Rob

[0] when I picked up 12 Indigo2 chassis, they all went in the back half
(behind the middle seat) and the tires were scraping the chassis. Oh well,
it was a 14 year old Aerostar, what do I expect? Now it's a 15 year old
Aerostar, so I expect even less :)


-- 
Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * rnovak at indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
	"I don't want to doubt you, Know everything about you
      I don't want to sit Across the table from you Wishing I could run."