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Date:      Mon, 4 Mar 1996 19:39:25 -0800 (PST)
From:      "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb>
To:        freebsd-scsi
Cc:        freebsd-hardware, freebsd-hackers
Subject:   Archive Anconda Tape drive 1.35GB
Message-ID:  <199603050339.TAA25127@freefall.freebsd.org>

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here is a summary of my experiences with an Archive Anaconda scsi-2
1.35 GB QIC tape drive.  many thanks to Stefan Esser who has once again
worked miracles with the ncr scsi controller.

jmb

-- 
Jonathan M. Bresler           FreeBSD Postmaster             jmb@FreeBSD.ORG
FreeBSD--4.4BSD Unix for PC clones, source included. http://www.freebsd.org/




	Archive Anaconda 1.35 GB SCSI tape drive (summary)

CSC (www.corpsys.com) sells a 1.3 GB QIC SCSI-2 tape drive for $200.
its the Archive Anaconda now relabeled as a Connor (the pc board says Archive).
The drive has been discontinued.  I have not been able to locate a Connor
advertisement for one. 

Spoke to sales and tech support at Connor today (960219).  Archive
was bought by Connor.  Connor was bought by Seagate.  The Anaconda
has been discontinued.  The unit was last shipped about a year ago.
The recommended tape is the 3M Magnus DC-9135.   Tech support
recommends that the SCSI controller be configured for 5 MB/s
operation, SYNC disabled, SCSI disconnect=no, and jumper jp6 open.
(the jumper information is wrong.  jp6 open == SCSI-1, jp6 shorted
== SCSI-2)  The tech doc is available from Connor's fax-back service:
1-408-456-4903 (?) document 2206 (?) (no fax machine here, i will
verify this tomorrow)

I bought one 2 weeks ago as an alternative to either 4mm DAT or 8mm Exabyte
style drives.  The drive did not work "out of the box" with FreeBSD 2.1.
with the help of Stefan Esser (se@se@zpr.uni-koeln.de) I am now able to use
the drive.

The drive is advertised as a SCSI-2 drive.  FreeBSD reports the drive as 
SCSI-1.  Installing jumper jp6 causes FreeBSD to report the drive as SCSI-2.

When operating as a SCSI-1 device (jp6 open) the drive does not
conform to SCSI-1.  The drive "locks" the scsi bus during at least
some mt operations (eg fsf, rewind, rewoffl).

When operating as a SCSI-2 device (jp6 shorted) the drive does not
lock the scsi bus during the operations listed above.  However to
get the ncr working with /sbin/dump, the ncr requires a patch
extending the latetime from 10 secs to a larger value.  presently
i am using 20 minutes.  ;(  but it works and its fast!   it does
not lock the bus while the dump is being written to tape.

But the drive is fast :) dumping at over 370kB/s.
I used "/sbin/dump 0unBbf 1200000 10 /dev/rst0 /dev/sd1f"

Okay, now the details:
Known:
	Normal SCSI-2 device (does NOT lock bus on fsf, rewind, rewoffl,
		or erase)
	Quasi-SCSI-1 device--locks scsi bus on some mt operations
		(fsf, rewind, rewoffl, erase, there may be others)
	The drive does NOT lock the bus during a dump to /dev/nrst0, so you
		can dump disks on the same scsi bus as the tape drive <whew>
	The unit has front panel eject button.  this button does NOT lock the
		scsi bus.
	56kB buffer on drive. (128kB see chip list below)
	One 8-1/2" x 11" double sided xeroxed page is all the technical 
		documentation that comes with the drive.
	Uses QIC-1350 tapes aka DC-9135, which may not be easy to find
		(3 local stores do not stock them ;(( details from mail order
		below under "Media")
	Reads QIC-150
	No hardware compression
	350kB/s sustained tranfer rate.  Rate varies with the media
		rate is the same for SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 operation
		QIC-150: 25288 tape blocks in 263 seconds (96kB/s)
		QIC-1350: 25288 tape blocks in 144 seconds (175kB/s)
		(note: these speeds are low.  My root partition only has
		 25 MB of data on it.  the setup time that dump requires
		 skews the results.)
		QIC-1350: 212215 tape blocks in 583 seconds (364kB/s)
		QIC-1350: 572707 tape blocks in 1648 seconds (347kB/s)
	The unit does not have a front panel slider put the heads against the
		tape, rather the unit pulls the tape deep inside then pushes it
		forward (to open the gate) and finally slides the tape sideways
		to engage the heads.
	Drive is half-height, 5 1/4" wide.
	The scsi connector (on the rear of the drive) is mounted upside down
		(compared to my hard drives).

	(note: the 128kB buffer is probably used as 2-56kB buffers
	 when writing to tape: the drive reads from one and writes to tape 
	 while the other is being filled from the scsi bus.  when reading
	 from tape, read to one buffer from the tape while writing to
	 the scsi bus from the opther)

	
Possible:
	May read QIC-525 (i dont have any)
	May write QIC-150, QIC-120, QIC-525, etc.  (i dont have another drive
		to read the tapes that i create with the Anaconda)

Media:
	Corporate Systems 1-408-734-3475 (same place i got the drive from)
	Verbatim	$24.00

	Connor Express 1-800-531-0968
	9135	3M	$49.00 each	8 in stock

	Media Source 1-800-241-8857 (andrew)
	9135		1	5	10
	Verbatim	28.29	26.94	26.94	no stock
	Sony		29.15	28.10	27.44	21 in stock

	Exxus 1-800-557-1000 (tory)
	9135
	3M		34.00
	Sony		30.00
	Maxell		29.00

	Diskette Connection 1-800-654-4058 (randy)
	9135
	3M		32.10
	Verbatim	28.95
	

dmesg output:
when configured as SCSI-2:
(ncr1:4:0): "ARCHIVE ANCDA 2750 28077 -003" type 1 removable SCSI 2
st0(ncr1:4:0): Sequential-Access 
st0(ncr1:4:0): 200ns (5 Mb/sec) offset 8.
density code 0x0,  drive empty

when configured as SCSI-1:
(ncr1:4:0): "ARCHIVE ANCDA 2750 28077 -003" type 1 removable SCSI 1
st0(ncr1:4:0): Sequential-Access density code 0x12,  drive empty

Technical Specifications:
	Archive Ananconda Model 2750S
	Formatted capacity:	1.35 Gigabyte with 9135 tape
	Track format:		15 or 18 track erpentine [sic]
				(QIC-1350 standard says 30 tracks)
	Flux density:		12,500 ftpi [sic] (QIC-1350: 38,750 ftpi)
	Data density:		10,000 bpi [sic] (QIC-1350: 51,667 bpi)
	Data transfer rate:	112.5 KB/sec [sic] (testing shows 350 kBps)
		10,000 bpi [sic] (QIC-1350: 51,667 bpi)
	Data transfer rate:	112.5 KB/sec [sic] (testing shows 350 kBps)
	Recording format:	QIC [sic] (QIC-1350: NRZ1)
	SCSI burst data transfer rate:	1.88 MB/s
	Data buffer size:	56 KB (see chip list below)
	Tape speed:		90 ips
	Speed variations:	short term +/- 4%
				long term  +/- 7%
	Start/Stop time:	300 mSec (maximum)
	Head configuration:	two-track, read-after-write (1 track in each 
				direction) separate full-width erase
	Recording code:		GCR (0,2) Run length limited [sic]
	Recording format:	QIC [sic] (QIC-1350 RLL 1,7 with ECC)
				(QIC-1350 RLL 1,7 with Reed Solomon ECC)

	(note: the unit write two tracks at one time 
	and erase's the entire tape in one pass. )

Jumpers:
	jp1-3:		scsi id
	jp4:		reserved (open)
	jp5:		parity check enable (default disabled, open)
			(note: scsi-2 spec requires parity to be enabled)
	jp6:		reserved (open)
			(scsi-1 open; scsi-2 shorted)
	jp7:		terminator power enable (default disabled, open)
			3 on-board sockets for passive terminators

Chip list:
	1 NCR 53c90B scsi protocol controller
	1 AMD 80c186-16 embedded controller
	4 KM44c256CJ-7 70ns, 4bit wide, 256kbit dram 
	2 KM41c256J-8  80 ns 1bit wide, 256kbit dram 

Other notes:
	drive frame is cast metal (pot metal).
	front panel is plastic.
	unit has a swinging door, hinged along its top side, that covers the
		tape slot.  when there is a tape in the drive, the door is
		held up (open), when the tape is removed the door swings down
		and closes the slot.  there is a spring holding the door closed.
	pc board is on top!   there are 3 pieces of pc board material soldered
		to the pc board.  each on is ~6mm high and several cm long.
	the scsi connector is mount upside down.  pin 1 is most distant from
		the power connector.  the cut out in the connector faces
		downward rather than upward.  tapes are inserted with the metal
		backing plate down and the manufacturers label upward.
	during reset the heads are stepped down to the limited and then upward
		several tracks.  the unit will over-step the heads, producing
		a chattering, if heads are already close to maximum depression.
	the metal backing plate of a QIC cartridge is warm after a backup.
		not hot, not a problem, but warm.  feels good in the winter. ;)
	the pc board says "Archive copyright 1992" and "anaconda main pcb 
		81422-   rev 001" (the 001 is hand written).  also hand written
		is the number 631.
	the drive motor is "Lot 9348"  48th week of 1993

		
System data:
	ASUS SP3G, AMD486-66DX2, 256 kB L2 cache configured write-back, 16 MB, 
	chipset is Saturn II (82424ZX).  2 SCSI busses: first bus is the
	on-board NCR53c810 SCSI-II controller and 2 disks: "DEC DSP3053LS X442"
	(id 0), "FUJITSU M1606S-512 6220" (id 1);  second SCSI bus is an NCR
	SC-200 PCI card controller (also an NCR NCR53c810 SCSI-II) one cdrom
	changer "NRC MBR-7 110" (id 0), one disk "FUJITSU M1606S-512 6220"
	(id6), and the "ARCHIVE ANCDA 2750 28077 -003 (id 4)"

Required kernel source patches:  
	(the first one is already part of -current, the second accomodates
	 the drive locking the SCSI bus)

/src/sys/pci/ncr.c
***************
*** 4441,4447 ****
        OUTB (nc_ctest4, 0x08   );      /*  enable master parity checking    */
        OUTB (nc_stest2, EXT    );      /*  Extended Sreq/Sack filtering     */
        OUTB (nc_stest3, TE     );      /*  TolerANT enable                  */
!       OUTB (nc_stime0, 0xfb   );      /*  HTH = 1.6sec  STO = 0.1 sec.     */
  
        /*
        **      Reinitialize usrsync.
--- 4441,4447 ----
        OUTB (nc_ctest4, 0x08   );      /*  enable master parity checking    */
        OUTB (nc_stest2, EXT    );      /*  Extended Sreq/Sack filtering     */
        OUTB (nc_stest3, TE     );      /*  TolerANT enable                  */
!       OUTB (nc_stime0, 0x0b   );      /*  HTH = disabled, STO = 0.1 sec.   */
  
        /*
        **      Reinitialize usrsync.
***************
*** 4832,4836 ****
                };
  
!               if (np->latetime>4) {
                        /*
                        **      Although we tried to wake it up,
--- 4832,4836 ----
                };
  
!               if (np->latetime>1200) {
                        /*
                        **      Although we tried to wake it up,




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