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From: ammond@gdls.com (Joseph R. Ammond)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: [Very Late SUMMARY] SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
Date: 19 Aug 1993 09:24:37 -0400
Organization: General Dynamics, Land Systems Division
Lines: 149
Message-ID: <24vuul$apo@gdls.gdls.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: gdls.com
Keywords: SUMMARY SCSI BSD 386
Well, the old rule of summaries seems to have hit here: If you say that
you'll post a summary, then your workload will expand to fill all
available time.
I apologise that this is so late.
The original question was "Which SCSI controller are most people using for
{386,Net,Free}bsd, and are there any problems associated with them?"
The replies were mixed, but most people leaned towards the 154X series. I
eventually ordered a 1542C board (without the DOS software, cheaper) from
CDW for $189. The board is the latest rev with the external cabling
patch, and has worked like a champ so far. I've only used it with my 2
internal drives, but we'll see when I borrow an Exabyte this weekend for
backups. It's same to say that I've had fewer problems with SCSI than my
old MFM drives.. :)
Anyway, here are the replies I got, in no particular order. Thanks to all
who replied to my request. Those of you who asked for a "metoo", it's in
the mail.
ja.
---
Joe Ammond ammond@gdls.com
"Wind in my hair/shifting and drifting/mechanical music/adrenaline surge"
Postmaster, Newsmaster, Unix administrator, Suicidal Swiss-army human.
----------
From: deraadt@fsa.ca (Theo Deraadt)
Subject: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
Rules of thumb:
1. Get the newest rev of 1542C. The problem seems much worse on
the earliest 1542C's. Best way to gaurantee this, is to order it
from a place that either (1) sells a lot of 1542C's, or (2) get
it from a place that will have to order one in for you.
2. Get a nice refund policy, just in case.
3. Use *good scsi cabling*. Try to reduce your use of ribbon cable,
and try to keep your cabling short.
Then you should be ok.
----------
From: bill@cygnus.com (Bill Cox)
Subject: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
I have an AMI EISA 486/33 motherboard, and an Adaptec 1740 SCSI
adaptor. Runs fast, never breaks. I love it.
----------
From: jackson@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Bruce Jackson)
Subject: Re: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
I am running the Adaptec 1542C on two NetBSD boxes. I had some
trouble but they were caused by the way my hard disk vendor formatted
my external hard disk prior to shipping. I almost sent back the 1542
controler until I tried reformatting the HD. After the reformat both
machines have been working flawlessly.
Bruce Jackson | Univ. of North Texas | jackson@cs.unt.edu
UNIX Systems Admin. | P. O. Box 13886 | GAB 550E (817)565-2279
Dept. of Computer Sci.| Denton, Tx. 76203-3886 | FAX: (817)565-2799
----------
From: chmr@edvz.tu-graz.ac.at (Christoph Robitschko)
Subject: Re: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
I have a BusLogic BT 545S card, which is compatible to the 1542B. (I'm normally
skeptical about "compatible" products, but this one worked without any
problems). I don't have exact information about pricing, but I think it is
a little bit cheaper than the Adaptec, so this would be my ISA SCSI controller
of choice again.
Christoph
----------
From: "Peter W. De Bonte" <pwd+@cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
As far as I know the 1542 is the only adaptor supported by BSD...
Whatever you do tho, get a busmastering host.
Work hard and prosper,
Pete W. De Bonte (x4759) pwd+@cmu.edu
"Knolege is powef, Speling is unimportnt" Team OS/2
Don't be fooled boys and girls: Microsoft doesn't give a damn about you!
----------
From: steve@nuchat.sccsi.com (Steve Nuchia)
Subject: no subject (file transmission)
Go with Buslogic (was Bustek) instead. Adaptec's "support" is
user-hostile to the point where I don't deal with them any more.
--
Steve Nuchia South Coast Computing Services, Inc. (713) 661-3301
Consultancy in technical computing. Communications services. Hardware.
4-port serial card for AT bus. Public shell/internet accounts in Houston.
----------
Subject: Re: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
From: cgd@postgres.Berkeley.EDU
i'm using two aha1742's, and one bustek 542b.
i had some *serious* data corruption problems with a 1542c in
an otherwise-working system. like, write a bunch of files,
and end up having fsck -n output 7174 lines of output!!!
(LITERALLY!!!)
i'd avoid the 1542c-- the earlier revisions have had several
problems from what i hear. in addition to the problem
i experienced, there was apparently some problem w/external
cabling, as well... i dunno how much, if any, of the problems
the later revs have fixed.
chris
----------
From: brian@claremont.com (Brian Childs)
Subject: Re: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
I am using and Adaptec 1742c with 386bsd (Which is an EISA board). I am also
using Julian's SCSI driver (a huge improvement over the as* driver).
I have to put the 1742 into 1542 compatable mode because the boot-blocks can't
deal w/a 1742, but the new SCSI driver puts it back into 1742 mode.
All of this is academic if you don't have an EISA machine though.
Hope this helped,
Brian
----------
From: andy@dbe.mgh.harvard.edu (Andrew Wieckiewicz)
Subject: Re: SCSI controller reccomendations for *BSD.
I'm running NetBSD with Adaptec 1542B. I've has NO problems whatsoever
with the controller and NetBSD. I am in the market to upgrade to
a Local Bus SCSI-2 Controller though. I would be interested if you hear
anything about the different types of VL-bus boards. Thanks for
sending any info.
--
| Andrew Wieckiewicz
| andy@dbe.mgh.harvard.edu
| Massachusetts General Hospital
--
Joe Ammond ammond@gdls.com
"Wind in my hair/shifting and drifting/mechanical music/adrenaline surge"
Postmaster, Newsmaster, Unix administrator, Suicidal Swiss-army human.