On Fri, 30 Apr 1999, Jay Orr wrote:
Can I use off the shelf memory (and what kind)?
Most likely, but your box will be unsupported by NAC. I don't know what they use but parity or ECC is a safe choice.
What about SCSI controllers?
Those may be much harder to find. You have to find out for what hardware NAC has drivers. You should be able to use a SCSI controller used in the newer Intel (perhaps alpha, but that's asking a lot) models provided that you use recent software.
Where can I get disk trays?
Good question, but you most likely don't have to get anything close to what NAC offer(s/ed). It may not be esthetically pleasing, but it should work.
Could we instead replace the drives with 9G or 18G drives (and what model would we use)?
I think you could, if you used recent software. I don't think that NAC goes out of their way to make it difficult to use 3rd party hardware. The lack of customer support is probably the worst thing that will happen to you.
NetApps solution is to spend $60k+ to upgrade, and all we need is another 10G - 20G. The current system works fine, isn't overused, and could handle the expansion IF WE CAN FIND THE COMPONENTS...
What does the 60k+ buy you?
Tom
P.S. I hope you succeed creating this monster. :) Shoot for the memory and the SCSI controller first. Then, before you buy a shelf, get 2 (this is a minimum) SCSI drives and hook them up in some enclosure (needed only for connectors) to the NAC with the controller. You should see those 2 disks as spares when you turn the system up. If you have a recent OS create another volume on those 2 disks and test thoroughly. At this point you might actually want at least 3 disks to maximize performance. I wish you were local, so I could drop by one weekend and play around with it with you.