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#1 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 02:06 PM

When I began to work for my university a few months back I picked up a
sparcstation 5 to familiarize with the hardware and build quality of a
classic Sun. Since then I've been more then impressed even though the
machine is quite dated now. Currently I have my main machine forward
it's X display to it and I run simple web browsing and email clients.
Unfortunatly the hard disk is rather small (500mb) and I am 30mb away
from capacity. What hard disk options do I have? I'm aware that the
interface is SCSI and that the disks come at a high premium than ATA.
Are there any specific manufactures that are recomended? Also, is there
a limit to how large of a disk I can install? For reference the Sun is
running Debian Woody with 224mb of RAM.

Thanks

--cr

#2 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 02:06 PM

In article <1116087175.011660.280170@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups .com>,
crozewski@gmail.com wrote:

> When I began to work for my university a few months back I picked up a
> sparcstation 5 to familiarize with the hardware and build quality of a
> classic Sun. Since then I've been more then impressed even though the
> machine is quite dated now. Currently I have my main machine forward
> it's X display to it and I run simple web browsing and email clients.
> Unfortunatly the hard disk is rather small (500mb) and I am 30mb away
> from capacity. What hard disk options do I have? I'm aware that the
> interface is SCSI and that the disks come at a high premium than ATA.
> Are there any specific manufactures that are recomended? Also, is there
> a limit to how large of a disk I can install? For reference the Sun is
> running Debian Woody with 224mb of RAM.

The largest that I've installed in a Sparc 5 was 9GB. However there's no
reason that I know of that would prevent it from accepting larger disks.
Though it is important to keep heat, electrical consumption, and size in
mind.

Since you're currently using a 500MB disk I suspect that you're not
looking for a significantly larger disk. 1GB and 2GB disks are
throwaways today. I suspect you could probably pick one up for free. 4GB
and 9GB are relatively low cost. When purchasing a disk for this system
keep in mind that it uses the 80 pin SCA SCSI connector. This greatly
increases the disks available to you.

Josh

#3 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 02:06 PM

crozewski@gmail.com writes:

>When I began to work for my university a few months back I picked up a
>sparcstation 5 to familiarize with the hardware and build quality of a
>classic Sun. Since then I've been more then impressed even though the
>machine is quite dated now. Currently I have my main machine forward
>it's X display to it and I run simple web browsing and email clients.
>Unfortunatly the hard disk is rather small (500mb) and I am 30mb away
>from capacity. What hard disk options do I have? I'm aware that the
>interface is SCSI and that the disks come at a high premium than ATA.
>Are there any specific manufactures that are recomended? Also, is there
>a limit to how large of a disk I can install? For reference the Sun is
>running Debian Woody with 224mb of RAM.

Any 80-pin 1" high SCSI drive should be fine. Keep in mind the heating
issues if you plan to run two drives in the machine, but otherwise grab
yourself a 9 or 18 GB 1" high 80-pin (ie. SCA) SCSI drive and you should get
a big leap in disk performance as well as having drastically more storage
space to use.

You can find 80 pin drives all over the place - Ebay's the best source to
get an idea on availability and pricing. If you can get new drives grab
them. Used drives fall of warehouse shelves but they're not always a good
bet unless you can test them thoroughly to make sure they'll be ok.

Regards,

Craig.
--
SUN RIPENED KERNELS - Surplus Sun Microsystems Equipment, Parts + Accessories
Waterfall, NSW, Australia - Operated by Craig Dewick - Founded in 1996
Main site: www.sunrk.com.au - Ebay Shop: www.ebayshops.com.au/sunripenedkernels
Ph: +612-9520-2547 - Fax: +612-9520-2557 - Mobile: 04-2163-0547 (int. +614)

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SparcStation 5 hard disk upgrade; limitations?