> I am asking for recommendations for "trench-tested" hardware that's
> not going to let me down

One of my main NFS file servers is:
	Asus P/I-P55T2P4 motherboard
	Pentium 120MHz, 512KB cache, 32MB memory
	two Adaptec 2940UW scsi controllers
	HP 6 tape DDS2 DAT changer/drive (48GB/cartridge)
	13 Seagate ST410800 9GB scsi drives (the 5.25 inch ones)
	SMC Etherpower Fast Ether controller
	$10 el-cheapo VGA controller :-)

It is running 1.2 with a patch for larger numbers of buffers (set as a
percentage of main memory):
fs3$ uptime
 3:32AM  up 51 days,  8:18, 3 users, load averages: 0.58, 0.63, 0.91
(51 days ago is when I upgraded it to 1.2.  It was 1.1 with lots of
 patches before that)

I've had very good experiences using this hardware in a production
environment.  As you might guess from our disk setup, we're more
interested in capacity than absolute performance.  This file server
is used 24 hours/day during our chip build process.  We use similar
hardware for several other file server type machines and for about 250
cpu servers that run simulations 24 hours/day.  The most common thing
we've found to fail are the fans in the power supplies :-)

> ASUS P/I-P65UP5 w/ P6 Daughtercard

I have a bunch of ASUS NP5 PPro 200MHz systems with 256MB of memory, but
haven't used the UP5.

> 9GB Micropolis 1991AV (I swear "micropolis" must be an ancient word
> 			meaning "Bad Drive")

I use these things for bookends.  I have about 12 of them lying
around.  They all died with humungous numbers of bad blocks after
being in service about 1-2 years.  Sometimes reformatting them helps,
but I don't trust 'em.  I only buy Seagate and Quantum large drives
now.  I've only had one DOA of a Seagate 9GB drive in the 40 or so of
them that I have in service, and they're all still running.

> I'm considering getting a few scsi adapters and more disks and spreading a
> ccd interleave across them... any comments? is ccd considered stable
> enough for "production environments" ?

Haven't used ccd much.  fsck times are long enough on a 9GB file
system if you crash.  Of course, I haven't crashed since upgrading
from 1.1 to 1.2...

> I also have a Digital TZ87x (forget the last number) it's basically a 5
> tape DLT unit that I am thinking of putting on this box... any one know if
> this should work and if so what kind of greif I might expect?

My HP DAT changer works great with chio and dump.  Haven't used any
DLT drives.

-- 
Brian Baird				Exponential Technology, San Jose CA
brb@exp.com				+1 408 467 4418