New hard drive in an Indigo2

From: Doc <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
Date: Tue Mar 12 11:49:04 2002

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Christopher Smith wrote:

> Do they make a normal SCSI-2 drive that's about 10G or larger?
> (better if it fits in the 3.5" by 1" (or so) sled)

  All the 9G+ narrow SCSI drives I can think of ar 5.25" drives.

> If not, is it possible to plug in an ultra SCSI drive? Will the
> drive slow itself down to normal speed if it's properly adapted?

  I dunno about SGI, but I've got a couple of 2.1G Ultra drives in a
VAXstation.... I've had better results in general putting the 50-68pin
adapter at the SCSI board rather than at the drive. I don't think it
matters much, though. I _do_ think how you terminate does matter. A
passive narrow terminator (eg most CDs' internal termination) seems
unreliable with wide drives on the channel. We had the drive speed/bus
speed fla^H^H^H, I mean thread, last month. ;^)
  But, yes. I personally have never seen a SCSI drive overrun the
adapter.

> Has anyone tried either of these things? I am interested in both
> theory and practice, here.

  Yes. Alla time.

> Lastly, what about a SCSI-2 hardware RAID (cost, etc)? What about
> a Fiberchannel interface for this ting (is there even such a board?)

  I've got a Mylex PCI 20mbit adapter (DAC960[PL?]) I'll trade you
cheap. It's my opinion that on a non-server box, the gained speed is
minimal compared to the lost storage capacity suffered with any reliable
RAID, unless you really need to mirror your data.


        Doc
Received on Tue Mar 12 2002 - 11:49:04 GMT