RE: EMC DASD (wasCISC to RISC conversion of data)

[David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can't speak to other OEM disk vendor's offerings... but I know for a fact
that EMC's DASD offerings were completely sub-standard... and their support
came in a poor second (ref my previous post about CISC->RISC upgrades).

Luckily, they left the midrange market... although DecisionData's support
wasn't much better.

david

At 11:58 PM 4/7/98 , Neil Palmer wrote:
>I was called one evening by an IBM rep looking for assistance for a
>customer who was down (around Xmas and IBM was short of resources).
>Customer had a F60 with some EMC DASD.  One had failed.  After about 6
>hours and several phone calls a service rep had finally shown up with 3
>spare disks.  None of them worked, so he said they didn't have any more
>in stock (this was Toronto - the biggest city in Canada, and they didn't
>have any more disk in stock ??), and said he would try to get another
>within a couple of days, AND LEFT THE CUSTOMER WITH A NON-USABLE SYSTEM
>!!
>
>(I went in, removed the offending disk unit from the ASP - after doing a
>re-IPL to DST again as he had left the system with the rest of the EMC
>array not reporting in - and started them on a reload which was
>completed by 9am the next morning).
>
>So, IMHO, the reason 3rd party disk is cheaper, is because IT'S NO
>BLOODY GOOD !!!!
>(And - also IMHO - neither is their support).
>
>You're taping the birth/first steps/first baseball game of your only
>child with your Camcorder.
>Do you buy Acme or Brand-X tape from some flea market stand because it's
>a couple of dollars cheaper than a top quality name brand professional
>grade tape ?    
>
>NO !
>
>You don't risk something like that by using a cheap magnetic tape, just
>like you don't risk your company's business by trying to save a few
>bucks on magnetic disk.
>
>
>OK - I'm done ranting now - say goodnight Gracie !
>
>:-)
>
>
>Neil Palmer                                AS/400~~~~~      
>NxTrend Technology - Canada   ____________          ___  ~     
>Thornhill, Ontario,  Canada   |OOOOOOOOOO| ________  o|__||=   
>Phone: (905) 731-9000  x238   |__________|_|______|_|______)   
>Cell.: (416) 565-1682  x238    oo      oo   oo  oo   OOOo=o\   
>Fax:   (905) 731-9202       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
>mailto:NPalmer@NxTrend.com    AS/400  The Ultimate Business Server      
>http://www.NxTrend.com
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:        David Gibbs [SMTP:david@midrange.com]
>> Sent:        Tuesday, April 07, 1998 10:27 PM
>> To:  MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
>> Subject:     RE: CISC to RISC conversion of data
>> 
>> 
>> [
>> << snip>>
>> 
>> Caveat: We were running with OEM disks that were EXTREEEMLY unstable.
>> In
>> fact, two of the HDA assemblies was INCOMPATIBLE with the 620 (EMC
>> should
>> have known about that... we did ask them).
>> 
>> I'm not blaming IBM for the problem... they sure went to bat for us
>> (even
>> after it was determined the problem was with OEM hardware) ... we had
>> 2
>> CE's onsite almost 24 hours/day for a week ... plus level 2 support on
>> the
>> horn at all hours.  I place the blame for the problem SQUARELY on
>> EMC's
>> shoulders... they had incompatible hardware and should have told us
>> about it.
>> 
>> 
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