Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request From: phri!roy@philabs.philips.com (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: Reliability of Sun 3/50's Message-ID: <3612@phri.UUCP> Date: 9 Dec 88 21:42:04 GMT References: <8811102030.AA03003@helios> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas Lines: 41 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu Original-Date: 24 Nov 88 19:30:23 GMT X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 40, message 5 of 8 > The question before us, as we contemplate acquisition of our sixth and > seventh Sun 3/50-ME-4, is 'to maintain or not to maintain?'. We have 15 3/50's, most (12) of them about 2-1/2 years old. Call it 35 3/50-years of operation. We don't keep any under maintenance. We've had 1 memory chip die which required replacing the CPU board (*!$%@#!) at something like $1300 and 30-days down-time for that particluar workstation. We also had a monitor high-voltage power supply die, which we replaced directly from the monitor manufacturer (Moniterm) for a couple $100 or so. Right now it looks like we have a second system with a memory chip starting to flake out (parity error panics every month or so). We also had a couple of infant failures, covered by warranty. Assuming the machine with the monthly parity errors will die for good tommorow, requiring another new CPU board, that will be under $3000 in repair costs over 35 machine years, or $85/machine-year. We work out the math something like this: It costs $50/month to put a 3/50 under service. At the time we made the decision, we had 12 3/50's so it would have cost us $600 a month for all of them. We can buy a brand new 3/50 for about $3600 (educational discount), which means that even if we had to throw one in the trash every 6 months and replace it completely, we would break even. As it is, we're way ahead. Of course, if you don't get educational prices, the replacement price is higher (but not the repair or mantenance price; there is no discount on these). This shifts the equation a bit. Also, we have the technical expertiese to do a reasonable amount of trouble-shooting and repair ourselves. If you don't have that, you would, for example, have had to buy a new monitor from Sun instead of just replacing the power supply at a fraction of the cost. We are also able to cope with a single diskless workstation being down for a month (Sun has priority repair service, at a much greater cost, which we avoid). We do keep our file servers under contract because when they go down (hasn't happend yet!) a lot of clients are taken along. We also keep our 3/160's under contract because we can't risk having to buy a new one like we can a new 3/50, and because they get much heavier use. Roy Smith, System Administrator Public Health Research Institute {allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net