From owner-freebsd-scsi Tue Feb 20 22:07:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-freebsd-scsi Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id WAA09911 for freebsd-scsi-outgoing; Tue, 20 Feb 1996 22:07:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from fang.cs.sunyit.edu (urcf@fang.cs.sunyit.edu [192.52.220.66]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA09906 Tue, 20 Feb 1996 22:07:34 -0800 (PST) Received: (from urcf@localhost) by fang.cs.sunyit.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id BAA01558; Wed, 21 Feb 1996 01:07:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 01:07:26 -0500 (EST) From: "Rodney C. Forbes" Message-Id: <199602210607.BAA01558@fang.cs.sunyit.edu> X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: SCSI info needed. Cc: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk I am running FreeBSD 2.1-RELEASE on a 386/25 with 8MB RAM. I currently have a 540MB IDE harddrive split between DOS/WINDOWS and FreeBSD. I have an Adaptec 152x SCSI-2 controller with an external SCSI-2 7 disk CDROM changer. This all works fine. I just ordered a 730MB harddrive and a Conner 1.35 GB 1/4" Anaconda tape backup, both SCSI-2. I would like to put FreeBSD on the SCSI harddrive and let DOS have IDE. Now that I think I've covered the pertinent system specs, I have a couple questions: 1. What kind of problems would I be facing regarding using this SCSI controller/driver to run an all SCSI FreeBSD system? If I will need to buy a bus-mastering SCSI controller, I can, but I would rather not right at this moment. Is there an update to this driver that would allow me to utilize it's DMA features? 2. I remember seeing messages in one of the mailing lists recently regarding a similiar tape backup unit, but could not find them in the FreeBSD archives. (Yes, I did look. There are a whole lot of questions with the word "tape" in them. More specific searches didn't come up with anything, so I made a last ditch effort that did not pay off.) What kind of trouble am I going to get into with this drive? Does it work with FreeBSD? I think someone was talking about using different cartridges other than the DC9135 that are supposed to be used in it. What other cartridges will work? I kind of ordered these blind in the attempt to make my system more usable, because I got a pretty good deal on both. I was beginning to feel a little cramped regarding drive space and Colorado Jumbo 250 floppy tape drives suck. If anyone could answer any or all of the above questions, I would appreciate it. TIA, Rodney From owner-freebsd-scsi Wed Feb 21 00:52:08 1996 Return-Path: owner-freebsd-scsi Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id AAA18817 for freebsd-scsi-outgoing; Wed, 21 Feb 1996 00:52:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de [141.76.1.11]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id AAA18708 Wed, 21 Feb 1996 00:51:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from sax.sax.de by irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with ESMTP id JAA07051; Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:51:29 +0100 Received: by sax.sax.de (8.6.11/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id JAA10097; Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:51:29 +0100 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.7.3/8.6.9) id JAA20071; Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:48:28 +0100 (MET) From: J Wunsch Message-Id: <199602210848.JAA20071@uriah.heep.sax.de> Subject: Re: SCSI info needed. To: urcf@fang.cs.sunyit.edu (Rodney C. Forbes) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 09:48:27 +0100 (MET) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: <199602210607.BAA01558@fang.cs.sunyit.edu> from "Rodney C. Forbes" at Feb 21, 96 01:07:26 am X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk As Rodney C. Forbes wrote: > > 1. What kind of problems would I be facing regarding using this SCSI > controller/driver to run an all SCSI FreeBSD system? If I It will be as slow as your IDE solution. However, you still get a chance to upgrade to a better controller (and even a very old AHA1540 will do) without throwing away the other equipment. > will need to buy a bus-mastering SCSI controller, I can, but I > would rather not right at this moment. Is there an update to > this driver that would allow me to utilize it's DMA features? Very unlikely. There's too few interest, nobody of the ``classic'' hackers seems to have the hardware and/or time to do it. Of course, you are welcome to imporove it. :) You've got at least two of the missing things, hardware and interest. It looks that the guy who wrote the driver started to think about DMA, but didn't finish it ever. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) From owner-freebsd-scsi Sat Feb 24 08:47:25 1996 Return-Path: owner-freebsd-scsi Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id IAA22021 for freebsd-scsi-outgoing; Sat, 24 Feb 1996 08:47:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from zit1.zit.th-darmstadt.de (zit1.zit.th-darmstadt.de [130.83.63.20]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA21985 for ; Sat, 24 Feb 1996 08:47:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from [130.83.63.13] (apfel.zit.th-darmstadt.de [130.83.63.13]) by zit1.zit.th-darmstadt.de (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id RAA14156 for ; Sat, 24 Feb 1996 17:47:14 +0100 X-Sender: michael@zit1.zit.th-darmstadt.de Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 17:47:25 +0100 To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org From: petzi@zit.th-darmstadt.de (Michael Beckmann) Subject: Block size on hard disk Sender: owner-freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk Hi, I have a 4 GB SCSI disk (DFHS) from IBM in my system, attached to an NCR 810 controller. It is formatted for 512 bytes per block, like mosts hard disks. I noticed that the disk can be formatted for 512, 1024 and 2048 bytes per block. I was thinking whether it would be wise to reformat it for 1024 B/block. I know of some Seagate disks which gain a few 100 MB through this. But I also heard that some operating systems have trouble with larger block sizes. I assume that FreeBSD is not vulnerable to this ? Will it have an effect on performance ? Any experiences with this ? Thanks, Michael