| A much better way to reformat RD53's and RD54's is to do the formatting
| on a PDP-11 using the XXDP+ diagnostics, or to just use the built
| in formatter in a Vaxstation 2000.  The XXDP+ and VS2000 formatters
| are much more robust than the formatter that runs on a Microvax.

But then as you likely know the vs2000 formats with an interleave of 2:1
rather than the 1:1 like with an RQDX3.  I've done no performance testing
so both are likely equally slow.  Have you tried the FE version of uVAXen
diagnostics?  I've used XXDP+ once and recall the FE version is pretty much
the same thing.  Unlike the "customer formatter" which is really a reformat
I think and fails often, you get to do a variety of things including a "first
time format" of a drive which is spiffy after a PC scrub.