Users come out on right side of most price changes

IBM Corp has reshuffled pricing on some of its RS/6000 machines, input-output peripherals and memory. The company has also altered minimum maintenance costs. Storage devices have gone down on average, with a 650Mb 7209 Optical Disk Drive falling by 22.7% to $4,000 from $4,900 and a 5/10Gb 8mm tape drive bridge box dropping 17% to $5,900 from $6,900. The minimum maintenance charge on 1Gb SCSI-2 disk drives fell to $35 from $50. Most disk drives were cut by roughly $400 to $ although some fell even more, with a 2.4Gb SCSI-2 subsystem dropping by 25% to $6,000 from $7,500. Some prices rose; if you want a 400Mb to 857Mb disk select subsystem you’ll have to pay 8.2% more for it at $5,250, while an 800Mb to 1.37Gb Select – disk will set you back an extra 54.1% at $2,280. Feature prices on the RS/6000 9334 and 7051 machines have fallen. A 5/10Gb 8mm internal tape drive fell 15.8% to $5,700 while a 2.4Gb SCSI-2 disk drive fell 25% to $6,000. Repair charges on a 1Gb SCSI-2 disk drive fell 71.4% to $35. Memory upgrades fell considerably, some by up to 28.2%. Upgrades from 64Mb to 128Mb fell by that much, costing $39,000, while a Memory Select 256Mb dropped 27.3% to $32,600. A 128Mb SIMM kit fell 34.8% to $15,800. Prices on some RS/6000 models were also cut: the Powerserver 98B fell 15.1% to $99,500, the 580 model, server or workstation, fell 19% to $52,500.

String of new SCSI disk drives introduced

Apart from the storage price cuts, IBM has made a number of storage announcements including SCSI drives, expansion units and RAID arrays. The company has launched two disk drive subsystem models, the 9333 high performance models 011 and 501, which are big 010 and 500 models. The $21,200 011 model slots into RS/6000 series 900 system racks, or IBM 7202 model 900 expansion racks. The free-standing 501, costing $21,600 is for RS/6000 models 340, 350, 360, 370 and 500s. Whereas the 010 gives 857Mb storage, the new models contain two standard 2Gb drives, and have a maximum capacity of 8Gb. They attach to the host machines using a 40.80Mbps adaptor, and will ship in August. There will also be a Multiple System Attachment unit enabling the disk subsystems to connect to up to eight RS/6000 machines in September. Users can upgrade from the former models to their new equivalents for $6,000. The 9334 011 and 501 models are SCSI expansion units. They ship with two 1Gb differential SCSI-2 drives, although if users go for 2Gb drives they can attain up to 8Gb storage. The 011 connects into the same system as the 9333 system, while the 9334 501 hooks up to 300 or 500 series RS/6000s. Using a SCSI-2 Differential High Performance input-output controller the units can support up to seven RS/6000s. IBM is discontinuing features of the older 9334 010 and 500 models on October 15, including the 857Mb disk drive, the 1Gb SCSI-2 drive and the internal quarter inch cartridge drive tape, but the 501 model will be able to make use of a new 5Gb 8mm tape drive. IBM’s other SCSI releases were a 2Gb 3.5 SCSI-2 drive at $4,800, and a 540Mb SCSI-2 drive of the same size, at $1,600.

7135 RAIDiant Array brings IBM RAID to the RS/6000

For those needing more reliability, IBM is offering its 7135 RAIDiant array models 010 and 110, connecting to RS/6000 machines. The 010 isn’t RAID-capable but provides up to 24Gb storage, coming with 4Gb as standard. Users requiring more reliability can field upgrade the 010 to the 110, which can provide three RAID architectures – Levels 1, 3 and 5. The unit, which also has disk-striping capabilities, comes with 2.6Gb and can take up to 60Gb of storage. There is an optional back-up controller, running the REACT software which will be upgraded in the first quarter of next year to support two active controllers at once to speed up operation. RAIDiant arrays must be hooked up to a SCSI-2 Differential High Performance input-output controller on an RS/6000 machine running AIX/6000 V3.2.4 Unix, 5756-030 and Selectable AIX feature code 5059, READI and REACT. The 010 costs $31,190 and the 11

0 costs $38,750. An upgrade from the former to the latter will cost $13,150, the firm said.

9337 High Availibility Offering

Users wanting RAID-5 technology offered by the 9337 Disk Array Subsystems can now get discounts off the single unit price of 9337 Disk Array Subsystems, as long as they’re installed with the minimum number of feature-files. Users can get $3,000 off the price of a model 010 or 110, or $4,000 off an 020, 040, 120 and 140. At least 50% of the 010, 020 and 040’s disk capacity must be used for disk mirroring under the offer. Other discounts and allowances, including the 9332 and 9335 trade-in program, may be combined with the offering up to the maximum sum for which a customer may qualify.

3995 Optical Library Dataservers

IBM released two rewritable back-up systems in the form of the Optical Library Dataserver 3995 models 063 and 163, for attachment to the RS/6000. Designed for long term information storage, the devices provide up to 40Gb and 188Gb of unformatted storage respectively. Increased storage capacities mean that the drives can be used for applications such as workflow management and imaging which were impractical under previous systems according to IBM. The 063 costs $29,950 and the 163 costs $79,950. They will be available on September 24 and December 17 respectively. Customers should note that the models come with no supporting software. The drives connect via an SCSI interface to the RS/6000 7012 and 7013 machines, while the 163 will connect to the 7015 Powerserver model, the company added.

IBM AIX HIPPI Driver Group/6000

IBM has released an AIX High Performance Parallel Interface Driver Group/6000 – HIPPI/6000. The system provides communications to a variety of supercomputer, storage and communication equipment for commercial and technical AIX/6000 implementations. The system provides Gbps-speed communication with devices when used in conjunction with a HIPPI Micro Channel Adaptor set, says the company. The system can connect to other RS/6000 units, disk arrays, tape subsystems, supercomputers and HIPPI fibre-optic extenders. The HIPPI driver supports the TCP/IP, User Data Protocol and Intelligent Peripheral Interface-3 protocols. IBM recommends 32Mb of memory when using the system and 400Mb fixed-disk storage is needed. Only RS/6000 500 and 900 series machines will take the system and the adaptor. The system costs $2,500 under the basic package, $2,245 under the IBM Distributed Systems Licence Option.

New 1.2Gb quarter inch tape unit

IBM has launched the 1.2Gb quarter inch cartridge tape drive, which at a transfer rate of 300Kbps is over three times faster than internal rack-mounted drives. Fitting the 5.25 form factor, the unit can store 1.2Gb per cartridge – eight times its predecessor. Up to two of the $2,000 drives can be installed on an RS/6000 system.