Networks

Because of the expense of the Cage most places only bought what they needed to use so that was 2 or 3 per unit and then used Blank Plates in the other Holes Hum Slots.

The Proliants where very good units in their day and I still rat a couple out and use them as Gateway devices in some places where 17 GIG or so is more than adequate for the needs of the device. The last time I saw any Cages for Proliants I grabbed as many as they had at a Ex Government Auction Place and picked them up for a few $ for the entire lot. But the drives that I used in them where much wider/higher than the ones the HP sold with them so that I could only fit one drive in every 2 slots. But the actual drives where much cheaper so I just lived with them. I have several IBM Netfinities here which use the same HDD and I only have 2 drives per machine with several Clones around so when there is a failure or either software or hardware I just have to switch a drive and am up and running in a few minutes except for the last time when I had to replace a corrupt OS after a power failure and didn't have the time to clone another drive. so 2 days latter when the power went out again I lost the entire OS and had to reload from Scratch.

You may be able to buy some repaired Drives and use them at a very reasonable price. I picked up a repaired Seagate 50 GIG for something like $50.00 each from a company who specializes in selling Factory Repaired Drives from Seagate here. You'll have to look around as I'm not sure who does this in your area but I found my place through E-Bay if that is of any help. Though I generally don't use Reco Drives but in this case as it's mine and I'm not making any money off it it was a chance I could take and the risks where negligible. On the up side those 50 GIG Drives and a couple of 17 GIG Drives have been very reliable and not missed a beat since I got them and they are left running 24/7 except when there are power outages and thunder storms. Pity that the Domestic type Drives are not that reliable I generally get about 6 months out of a IDE drive that is returned to me from Seagate so for fairly obvious reasons I try not to reuse these drives as I just don't trust them.

But the older Barracuda drives that I have here are brilliant and I just can not fault them but they are used for Boot Drives for the 17 GIG and Storage Drives for the 50 GIG Drives and I do compress them when they are running Windows but not for Nix.

Cheers

Col

I'll keep on searching then, it sounds like e-bay is the only option unless I can pull the drive back plane and replace it with something less proprietary.

Such a good piece of kit it seems a pity to sne it to landfill

Thanks again
Reg

And that is exactly the same reason why I use the Netfinitie's while they work they are way to good to end up in the rubbish.

Col