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

[Paul Khoury]

-----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