Fibre Channel?

From: Ethan Dicks <dickset_at_amanda.spole.gov>
Date: Tue Oct 26 16:15:41 2004

On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 09:48:38PM +0100, Antonio Carlini wrote:
> No idea about the Compaq stuff, but I picked up a FC disk the other
> day that was being discarded. I'd been told that "there's no such thing
> as a FC disk - they're all SCSI really". Well this one is a Seagate
> ST31820FC and has a 40-way (not 80-way) SCA connector on the back.

My first exposure to FC _drives_ (as opposed to enclosures with genuine
SCSI drives and an external fiber link) was in 1997/1998... Seacrate,
IIRC. I remember a funky connector that was pretty small... smaller than
40-pins even, but I'm not as sure of that detail.
 
> Any chance that this is SCSI in disguise :-) If so I'll go nab
> a few of the 32GB ones for my VAXen, otherwise I get to try
> the 9GB SCSI LVD ones instead!

FC drives are SCSI command protocol, serialized data rather than parallel
(like a 50/68/80 pin drive), and some FC-oid physical layer/signals/voltages.

I am not aware of a simple adapter to use an FC drive with an older machine.
I have seen PCI and Sbus FC adapters. It might be possibly to cobble something
up with one of those, but not with, say, an Adaptec 1540.

-ethan

-- 
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S      Current South Pole Weather at 26-Oct-2004 21:10 Z
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Received on Tue Oct 26 2004 - 16:15:41 BST

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