History (1994): Still no RAID-5 for IBM Mainframes

There still is no RAID-5 available for IBM mainframes and we still don’t know who, from Big Blue or Storage Technology, will be the first to ship.

The Meta Group believes that “the implementation of ECK D to fixed-block mapping and unacceptable 3.5-inch HDA reliability will cause the delay of IBM 3.5-inch DASD for mainframes by 90 days” (3Q94 availability), the 9390- HP and 9590-HA, a RAID-5 subsystem. This will only serve PCMs (EMC, HDS and Amdahl).

We are still waiting for the official release date of StorageTek’s Iceberg RAID-5 which had been announced on January 28, 1992 and should yield the company a $50 million revenue the year of its announcement.

According to US sources, until now, the Colorado-based company has spent around $165 million for Iceberg with no profit in return.

Soon after the Iceberg announcement, the president, COB and CEO, Ryal Poppa exercised options and sold shares for about $5.4 million in profits. Officers and directors of the company sold about 90,200 shares a few days after the announcement. This provoked a shareholder lawsuit charging company officials of trading on inside information. Last June, the SEC was investigating possible violations.

STK was also sued by 200 investors for $2.5 million for questioning the ownership of the technology on which Iceberg is based.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠74, published on March 1994.