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Date:      Sun, 27 Jun 1999 00:06:35 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Donald Burr <dburr@pobox.com>
To:        FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>, FreeBSD SCSI <freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Need help choosing a new SCSI card
Message-ID:  <XFMail.990627000635.dburr@pobox.com>

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It was bound to happen.  After getting a new (external) tape drive and
hooking it up to my system, I now find that my SCSI chain is too long
to work reliably.  With my external devices, I get parity errors and all
sorts of unstable performance from my (internal) SCSI hard drives. 
Almost lost a filesystem because of that.  But with my external devices
unplugged (leaving only the internal hard drives), everything works
perfectly.

So it looks like it's time to get me a new SCSI card -- one with multiple
buses on the same card (so that the internal and external connectors are
both on separate buses).  Normally, I would buy a second SCSI card, and
put only external devices on it (especially since NCR/Symbios cards are
so cheap nowadays), but unfortunately I am also out of PCI slots.  So I
need a single PCI SCSI card that has multiple buses on the card.

So I need some help from the FreeBSD SCSI community in choosing a new
card!  Here are my requirements:

* IMPORTANT!!  Separate SCSI buses for internal and external connector.
  My SCSI chain is too long to have both internal and external be on the
  same bus.
* BIOS on the card.  My SCSI disks are my boot devices, so I need an
  on-card BIOS.  MY MOTHERBOARD DOES *NOT* HAVE AN NCR BIOS BUILT IN TO IT
  (I checked).
* Narrow Ultra SCSI support (50-pin, 20MB/s) preferred.  All of my devices
  are narrow, either Fast (10M/sec) or Ultra (20M/sec).  I really
  would rather not have to upgrade to Wide or U2W drives.
* FreeBSD compatibility, of course!  (I run 3.2-STABLE)  But it would be
  great if the card works under Linux as well, since I have to do projects
  in Linux now and then.
* Reasonable cost.  I unfortunately don't have a lot of money to spend. 
  (I might be able to find something used on EBay or some other auction
  site, though I would rather buy new, of course.)

Are there any NCR/Symbios cards that fit the bill?  I really like this
chipset and it is a heck of a lot cheaper than Adaptec...

In addition, if someone can point me to a good mail order (or Web order)
place where I can get this card, I would be very grateful.

Please reply to me in e-mail &/or to the FreeBSD SCSI list.  Thanks!
---
Donald Burr <dburr@pobox.com>-Member The FreeBSD Project| PGP: Your
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