Lisa,
The following is a summary of the 5 messages I have received
concerning towers. I hope it helps.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
********************************************************
I've using a CD-ROM server built by Meridian Data out of
California. Currently, I've got 7 CD-ROM drives in the unit - all in
all, one unit can support up to 14 drives. I'm running Medline in 4
of the drives, MicroMedex in another. By this summer, I hope to have
Beilstein's and A.D.A.M. running in the last two. I'm quite happy
with the performance of the database server. It hangs off of my
building's Ethernet backbone, and uses Novell's IPX as a carrier up
and down the lines. It's a 386/33 based system, though I'm going to
be upgrading this soon. Access time is quite acceptable. During a
normal day, I've got over 100 workstations connected to my building
spine at one time, and anywhere from 1 to 15 person's running
searches or retrieval on the CD-ROM server. Even with this, the
access time is FAR superior to running a single CD-ROM drive unit,
mainly because the processing in the CD-ROM server unit is better and
faster. In addition, the unit has 16MB of RAM - normally, about 50%
of data retrieved off of the server are/is cached out.
Let me know if you have any questions about my unit. As I said,
I'm happy with the server that we're currently using. There are
certainly other CD-ROM server units out there, and I can't claim ours
to be the best. However, I would highly recommend going beyond the
single CD-ROM drive units, and centralizing on a larger unit (that
is, of course, assuming that you're area is networked).
- Mark Hall, Network Administrator Internet: mah@merc.rx.uga.edu
The University of Georgia mhall@uga.bitnet
College of Pharmacy Phone: (706) 542-5297
Athens, Georgia 30602 FAX: (706) 542-5269
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