< So the upshot is, that while both ends of the BUS (host controller and d
< circuitry) can move data at a pretty good clip, the physical drives DEC
< attached to it were not up to the task.   I have never seen good transfe
< rates from ANY RAxx series drive on ANY DEC CPU under ANY OS.   

define good!  They were as good as it gets for 1986 or so.  Comparing it 
to the latest 3" 8gig wide scsi is like racing your 12year old family far 
against 1998 season formula 1.

< And it's not like they traded speed for reliability either...   Everyon
< remember what pieces of junk RA81's  were/are?    We had 12 of them runn
< at once at one point and it was a nightmare keeping them going.    The
< RA9x's we replaced them with were a godsend as far as reliability (no pr
< except for toasted power supplies) but no improvement in speed.   

Compare them to what was the "gold standard" of 1986.  they were ok 
excepting the HDAs that were factory botched.

Of course if you start comparing them to what DEC is selling currently 
maybe that pc stuff isn't the hotest thing on earth.

Boys and girls, for free and 8-12years old at that be glad it's not the 
then current crop of PC your running with st251s and other gems of 
reliability.

Allison