[rescue] Re: Raised flooring question(s)

[Skeezics Boondoggle]

At one point, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

> I have rescued some raised flooring and am in the process of cleaning
> it up and getting it ready for installation in my little datacenter.

Woo hoo!  Datacenters at home.  So cool. :-)  My ceilings are too low, but
boy it'd be cool to at least run power and fiber conduits under the
floors.  A friend runs an Internet2/local exchange POP down on the first
floor of the building here that has these spiffy polished aluminum tiles
that only provide about 2-3" of height - enough to run power conduits, and
1.5" tubing for fiber pulls under it and into the base of the racks.  I
should find out who makes that shiny flooring - it's dead sexeh!

Anyway, when you're done with your floors, post pictures. :-)

/.../
> I am not putting mainframes on top, just some desks and shelving and
> racks to hold pc-sized stuff.  I do have an Auspex that weighs 800
> lbs.

What model Auspex?  I'm guessing I have an NS3000, but there's a
conspicuous lack of any identifying marks anywhere on the thing - the guys
I got it from kept the racks, and the docs I do have aren't terribly
helpful in identifying just what particular machine this is.  I shoehorned
it into an old DEC rack.  Without the skins and Auspex decorative bits, it 
shure ain't the pertiest thing...

Mine's just missing an Mbus module - I tried an SM100 (dual CY605, yanked
from a 670) and an SM41, but no joy.  I need one of the ooolllld Cypress
601 modules or an Auspex (SparcEngine 1E?) PROM upgrade that'll support
something newer... After re-building the power harness (they must have
"fired the explosive bolts" when decommissioning the thing) I at least got
all the drives to spin up and fans and such to come on, but without a CPU
it's just a wee bit hard to boot the thing.  But the status LED glows
green, which must be the error code for "Uh, where the hell's the CPU?"  

Or maybe I can unload some extra Auspex crap on you. :-) I scavenged a
tray of ST15150N's from their Auspex carriers and fit them into BA350 cans
and blew new NetApp firmware onto them, and now they're in my little F330,
which doesn't rattle the house when I run it. :-)  And that's mostly why I
snagged the Auspex - a) so it wouldn't end up in a landfill, and b) as a
free source of disks :-) and c) Because It Was There.

So I plan to keep the 5.25" trays and try to get the monster running, at
least once - it has a dozen SCSI channels and a bunch of Ethernets on it,
so it would be fun to at least see it run once. :-)  But I've also got six
of the old 3.5" shelves and a honkin' huge 220V power supply (two of three
bays full) and the *insanely weird* DC wiring harness and various
connector bits which, I assume, someone could use to actually get these
things hooked up again... that's six 7-slot 3.5" fast/narrow, single-
ended, presumably hot-swap-capable and self-terminating SCSI shelves with
42 drive carriers, free to a good home.  (Nobody says you have to plug it
into an Auspex, of course.  But you'll need about 30U of rack space to
mount 'em all.)

But you have to come pick it up or bribe me or get me really drunk before
I'll consider taking the effort to palletize and ship the bloody things.  
I snagged the ST15150N's but could easily be persuaded to donate at least
the ones that say "Boot Z.blah" on them, which are, presumably, boot
disks.  Whee!

-- Chris
<skeezics at boondoggle.com>