Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!spool.mu.edu!nigel.msen.com!ilium!gdls.com!gdls.com!not-for-mail 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.