[geeks] Tapes, Drives, Libraries, and Arrays Need to Go

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

If someone would forward this to CC-talk and elsewhere, I'd appreciate it.

I am preparing to move soon.  I don't know how soon, but it's likely going
to be the case that I find something in a neighborhood I want, that I can
afford, and that I need to pounce on quickly, so I'm trying to be rid of
anything I don't have any hope of ever using.

I have a huge cabinet (I think it holds either 300 or 500 reels) of full
of 2400ft nine track tapes.  I no-longer have a working nine-track drive.
This cabinet is about four feet wide, seven feet tall, and two feet deep.

This pile o' tapes, the cabinet in which they hang so uselessly, and the
non-working DEC SCSI tape drive[0] need to go.  I don't want any cash for
it or the tapes, just please come and get them.  If you only want the
drive, I'll deliver it anywhere in Austin, but preference will go to
someone who'll pick up the cabinet full of tapes.

I also have a Sun StorEdge L3500 tape library with six DLT7000 drives.  It
is mechanically sound, and the drives work, but there's a defective
optointerruptor that determines the X position of the carriage; it's a
cheap part to replace and shouldn't take a lot of labor, but I'm backing
up to disk now.  You may either pick this up, or help me load it and
unload it, and I'll drive it to your central Texas location with my truck.

Photos of the library are here:

         http://jonathan.celestrion.net/photos/library/

I also have a Compaq Storageworks BA370 24-slot enclosure with dual
controllers.  This takes SCSI Storageworks "storage building blocks", and
I may actually have enough of them to fill the unit (not necessarily with
disks in the blocks).  I have spare batteries, controllers, and other
bits.  Need a fiber switch?  I have gigabit Brocade Silkworm and possibly
enough GBICs to fill it.

Feel free to make an offer on the BA370 or the switch.  I'll mail the
switch or deliver the BA370 in central Texas, but I won't ship the BA370
anywhere; it's just too hard to crate reasonably.


[0] I don't recall the model, but it's vacuum-loading, SCSI, and 5 or 6
     rack units tall.  The failure mode is that it fails to load the tape
     (or loads, fails to notice, and then unloads), so hopefully it's just
     a sticky sensor.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke ( "They don't have the right to read a book out loud."
Elgin, TX         (                  --Paul Aiken
USA               (                    Executive Director, Authors Guild