Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 01:50:59 -0600 (MDT) From: "Kenneth D. Merry" <ken@plutotech.com> To: dburr@pobox.com (Donald Burr) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Questions), freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD SCSI) Subject: Re: Need help choosing a new SCSI card Message-ID: <199906270750.BAA09536@panzer.kdm.org> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.990627000635.dburr@pobox.com> from Donald Burr at "Jun 27, 1999 00:06:35 am"
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Donald Burr wrote... > 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. Well, you could get a Symbios 876 (Ultra) or 896 (Ultra2) based board. No, I don't know where you can get one. You could probably also get an Advansys 3950. NECX (www.necx.com) has them for $230. Don't buy one without talking to Justin, though. Advansys has changed their model numbers around, and I'm not positive the 3950 is supported. And it's only an Ultra board, it can't do Ultra2. You could also get a Qlogic 1240 board. It's dual-channel Ultra. I dunno where to get one, though. Qlogic boards seem to be hard to find, unless you've got SGI boxes. (Their Origin 200's come with Qlogic chips and boards nowadays.) They have a 1280 (Ultra2) dual channel chip as well, but I can't tell whether it's supported by the isp driver. You could also settle for an Adaptec 3940AUW or 3950U2. Both of them work just fine, but as you pointed out, they're expensive. Sometimes, though, it pays to get good hardware. Ken -- Kenneth Merry ken@plutotech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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