[Pc_Support] New to SCSI, what's needed to use an internal DLT drive?

[Bryan J. Smith]

FYI, the Advansys driver in Linux 2.6 has been tagged as unmaintained/untested legacy last time I checked.
The 2.6 kernel has changed a lot of SCSI IOCTL interfaces, and many drivers required a refresh.

Of course thus doesn't apply if you're not running Linux.

  5MBps  SE Narrow (8-bit) SCSI
 10MBps  SE Narrow/Fast or Wide (16-bit)
 20MBps  SE Narrow/Ultra	or Wide/Fast
 40MBps  SE Wide/Ultra

 80MBps  LVD [Wide/]Ultra80 (aka Ultra2)
160MBps  LVD [Wide/]Ultra160 (aka Ultra3)
320MBps LVD [Wide/]Ultra320

xxxMBps  LVD SerialSCSI (in draft)

BTW, if you have a tape drive, you want to get the _fastest_ supported by your drive.
E.g., newer DLT, LTO, Mammoth or other 10+MBps sustained transfer drives are  typically LVD for a reason.
Because if the interface cannot keep up with the drive, it needs to stop, reverse and restart for when the stream "catches up."

Otherwise you'll wear out both cartrides and drive mechanics quickly.

I recommend LSI (formerly Symbios Logic, formerly NCR) 53c895 and 53c1010 Ultra80/160/320 LVD controllers.
Also be sure to use UTP (twisted pair) LVD cables and LVD terminators.


-----Original Message-----
From:  Damien McKenna 
Date:  05-4-28 22:55
To:  jasonb at edseek.com,        "This is the PC Support list." , This is the PC Support list.
Subj:  Re: [Pc_Support] New to SCSI,	what's needed to use an internal DLT	drive?

Jason Boxman wrote:

>From what I can tell, you always need a terminator.  If you're running older 
>SE SCSI, the drive can terminate the chain without any problems, if the drive 
>or device offers a 'terminate' jumper.  If not, you need an SE terminator for 
>the cable.
>  
>
Its a "SCSI SE" drive, I won two via Ebay at $19.99 each, totalling $52 
with shipping.  The aution description mentioned they were "SCSI SE" 
drives, and the one SCSI card I have says it is an Advansys ASC3050B 
8-bit / single-ended Ultra SCSI interface.  I think they're the same? 
<shrugs>  Guess I'll go find me a 50-pin cable or two and find out when 
the drives arrive.

-- 
Damien McKenna, husband, father, geek.
damien at mc-kenna.com - http://www.mc-kenna.com/

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