[Simh] RT-11 Storage Strategy

[Will Senn]

All,

The array of simulated disks available to simh is a little confusing to 
wade through. I tend to use RL02 and RK05, but really, I don't have a 
solid rationale for one over the other. In RT-11 these are available 
when attached, so their what I use. I'm hoping someone can offer some 
more informed storage advice/strategy.

Here are some questions to get the juices flowing:

In SimH with a PDP-11 running RT-11:

* Is there a preferred disk controller/device?
* Is there a controller that supports more disk devices than another (RL 
vs RK, etc)?
* Does one device have more capacity than another (either via single 
disk raw capacity or via overall capacity of attached units)?
* Is one device/controller more reliable in SimH than another?
* Do disks need to be formatted before initializing?
* Are there some known best practice configurations (so many RL 
controller, with so many drives, or so many RL and so many RK, etc.)?

Here's where I'm coming from as background. I have been studying 
Macro-11 programming in RT-11. I save all of my files on a storage disk 
that is separate from the SY: volume (DK:, etc.). I have found working 
Pascal, BASIC, and FORTRAN distributions that can be installed. Rather 
than installing them into SY:, It seems reasonable to attach a disk, 
assign the disk a logical name, and copy each distribution onto its own 
vol, something along the lines of SY:, PAS:, BAS:, FOR:, and MAC:, with 
5 disks attached. But, before I headed down this road, I thought I would 
get some advice.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for responding with your sage 
advice :).

Regards,

Will