On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Jay Orr wrote:

We've since gotten a new F720 and a spares kit. Do most people test out the spares kit, or do most put it on faith that the spare kit is good?

You (should) test out the spares kit just as you would do your own burn-in of new equipment, even though your vendor or reseller claims they've done their own QA. Nothing here goes directly from a shipping crate and into production here without a physical inspection and an operational burn-in period. Our most recent Netapp had a drive with a mashed SCA connector that somehow (?) passed inspection. It may even have worked if all the pins contacted the connector, and we would not have known about it had we not pulled out every drive and examined them.

I bought an entire F740 head unit instead of a spares kit. Last I checked, the spares kit does not include a CPU, so if that fries, you're outta luck. Besides, it is easier to swap entire heads than trying to switch a motherboard around or whatever.