[opcode]

Why are these things acard devices so expensive? 1000 bucks? I am guessing because there are ancient systems in use and businesses will drop a grand to keep them going. Anyone every used one of these?

I would like to convert my old hdds over to something a little less power hungry, loud, and hot. What is everyone using?

[jan-jaap]

<QUOTE author="opcode" post_id="1488" time="1531492800" user_id="73">

Why are these things acard devices so expensive? 1000 bucks? I am guessing because there are ancient systems in use and businesses will drop a grand to keep them going. Anyone every used one of these?

I noticed this too, and my best guess is that production stopped and someone is selling off the remaining inventory at ever increasing price.

<QUOTE author="opcode" post_id="1488" time="1531492800" user_id="73">

I would like to convert my old hdds over to something a little less power hungry, loud, and hot. What is everyone using?

Use more modern disks. IMHO, Seagate 15K.3 or newer are no more noisy than the average consumer SATA disk and you won't wear them out with typical hobbyist use of an old SGI. If you're a bit patient you can find them really cheap -- I bought a bunch of 450GB 15K.7 disks for something like 3 EUR a piece not so long ago. Granted, those were FC, but even regular SCSI won't break the bank compared to a 1K adapter + SSD

[Trippynet]

I agree with the better HDD route. Due to the limits of the SCSI bus on most SGIs, newer SCSI drives can easily saturate them for transfer rates. I have a good 30+ SCA HDDs I've salvaged from scrapped servers at work. I test them, keep the cool/quiet ones and either get shut of the hot/noisy ones, or use them just occasionally for backup purposes.

Even with 10k/15k drives, the (quietened) cooling fans of my systems are way more noisy than the HDDs in them.

[Jacques]

Agreed, I found even a 10k drive on an O2 / Octane is plenty fast and if you get a quiet Seagate / Fujitsu (Worldisk) you'll be set for a nice quiet system.

[opcode]

I have all of those, I was thinking more of as those die off. Years ago when we decomm'd all of the old dell 2950s, I snatched tons of SCA drives. Some from other systems too. They are great, but won't last forever.

[mapesdhs]

I tested a lot of drives over the years, the best I've found so far is the Fujitsu MAS for O2, MAX is good for Octane (slightly clickier than the MAS, but the Octane is louder anyway and the MAX has the best access time of any SCSI drive I've come across), and a particular model of Seagate 15K for Indy, Indigo2 and IRIS Indigo, though there are a few 10Ks which are quiet.

I've used the Acard ARS-2160/H a fair bit, it works ok in Indy, Fuel, Tezro and Octane (I sold a Tezro once to a movie company in Hong Kong which had an 850 Pro 512GB for the root disk), but it doesn't seem to like O2 (too many failures). Even then though, I've had one go bad in an Indy (thank grud for the clone backup I put in place, it was controlling a huge knitting machine at the rear of a high street clothing shop, so they needed to be up & running again asap). When I bought them new they were about 165 UKP each. Overall, out of nine Acards I bought, five became faulty, so no, not worth it (the four that are still working consist of two in an Indy at a textile company, both contain an OCZ Vertex4 64GB, the movie company system with the 850 Pro, and my Tezro rackmount with IIRC an OCZ Vertex2E 120GB). Well worth trying the SD card approach, but I've not done that yet.

Btw, an Indy with a Sony PSU and an SSD (I fitted an 850 Pro 512GB just for giggles) is kinda weird, no noise at all as it sits there.

Ian.

[kubatyszko]

The prices have indeed gone insane, I've had it in my ebay card (saved for later) at a "reasonable" price, and seeing seller asking $2000 for a piece makes me go crazy.
(Same applies to the ones asking 10-15000$ for a Fuel...).
People get greedy, that's it