> To: port-vax@netbsd.org
> Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 16:37:56 -0800
> Subject: Alternatives to the Vax 3100 (what's better, What's overkill)
> From: joseph p bennardo <fordluvr@juno.com>
> 
>     That being said what is a much faster, yet good alternative to my
> current Vax 3100 that I was given to create this lab with. It's REALLY
> slow and was something they were going to throw out, but I took it and
> convicted them to let me start up this test lab. I mean this thing slows
> down just because I keep running low on disk space. The pagefile gets too
> small and it crashes, locks up, ect. Since this is a testing lab I must
> be as close as possible to the real world Items so using anything but a
> Vax system is counterproductive. I was thinking of getting a Vax 4000-90,
> but I am now thinking a 4000-200 or 300 may be a better bet. Would that
> be overkill? My budget is limited, but I understand that there are people
> giving this stuff away. Size is also an issue. Anything bigger
> dimensionally than a 400-200 would be too big.

All things considered, disk space is the cheapest thing to increase.
Doesn't the Vax 3100 have mounting space for two internal SCSI drives?

Probably because of antique firmware, the drive from which you boot
needs to be 1GB or less, but the second drive does not have this
limit.  4GB SCSI drives are practically throw-away items nowadays.
Newer drives are also faster and less power-consuming than Vax
3100-vintage drives.

   carl
-- 
        carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
                                                  clowenstein@ucsd.edu