On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Jay Orr wrote:
For my griping - everything BUT the motherboard is designed for easy swap-out. Why can't they make the motherboard just as easy? Let's face it,
Actually, it is pretty easy. Two things extend the swap out time (by about a factor of two):
o the hexagonal bolts holding the SCSI connector, console, diagnostic, and onboard FCAL connector. I don't see a way around not having these bolted to the chassis; you don't want these things flapping in the breeze, since they are connector to external cables, which inevitably get pulled at or tripped over sometime.
o the 10-12 screws holding the motherboard to the chassis. Again, you don't want the motherboard flapping around inside, either. A dozen screws sounds a bit excessive though.
If all these screws were absent, all you have to deal with are the screws holding the PCI cards in place.
if best-case is 15 minutes on a mission critical system, that's not right. ever taken apart a Sparc or HPUX system? They're designed to be modular so it's just pop-out, pop-in, back in service. A design idea Netapp should follow...
I have always had bad luck fitting SBus cards in Suns; I can never get them wedged into the external slots just right. And, those dinky little screws on the back are hard to handle even without having fat fingers.
If your filer is that mission critical, NetApp will probably advise you to cluster it if even 15 minutes is not acceptable.
Until next time...
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