disk drive recommendation sought

[stiles@think.com]

   We are considering to buy some additional disk drives for our 3600s
   which run only SMD interfaces. Potentially we are hoping to have 300MB
   and up disk drives that are reliable and have moderate installation
   and mounting procedures. We have tried eagles and the CDC9771 and would
   like to know some other alternatives that some of you have loved.

   We are hoping to hear both good and bad experiences about your disks,
   where you can buy them, vendors' phone numbers, how expensive to buy, to
   maintain, reliability, any specail hacks/efforts required to run them ..

   In short, we are looking for advice and comments. Thanks in advance and
   we are hoping to hear from you right away. I will post the responses
   to this bboard after I put them together.

   Thanks. 

   --Tak
   Schlumberger Palo Alto Research


We have used both Eagles (direct from Symbolics) and the CDC9771.  Both are
good drives, but what we have opted for here is the CDC FSD515, which is
going to be upgraded to 1GByte in the immediate future.  These drives are
definitely more cost effective than Eagles, and after the upgrade will be
more cost effective than the 9771's.

Other interesting options that I have or am considering are the NEC 1.1 GByte
9" drives, and the CDC EMD drives (currently 368 MByte, soon over 700 MByte,
with further upgrades planned.  No further upgrades for the FSD drives are
planned).

   Jim Stiles