*BSD News Article 61403


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From: toor@gcsbciceonline.com (System Administrator)
Subject: Re: Adaptec 2940/2940w Experience/Problems
Reply-To: gerry@iceonline.com
Sender: root@gcsbc
Nntp-Posting-Host: ns.iceonline.com
Organization: Western Task Force
Message-ID: <4ft2ej$642@gcsbc.iceonline.com>
References: <4fdek3$nk0@miso.wwa.com> <4fdp0a$mnd@jaxnet.jaxnet.com> <DMKKJJ.9n1@metrics.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 16:25:55 GMT
Lines: 40


In article <DMKKJJ.9n1@metrics.com>, tomh@metrics.com (Tom Haapanen) writes:
|> 
|> > Richard A. Nuttle (richnut@sashimi.wwa.com) wrote:
|> >: Has anyone tried the new support for the Adaptec 2940 and 2940w in
|> >: BSDI 2.1? I'm curious as to the stability of the driver. If anyone
|> >: has any examples of a working/reliable configuration it would be most
|> >: appreciated.
|> 

	I have been using bsdi's 2940 drivers since last year ( mostly for
CNews! ). I guess I was a beta tester : ). Simple benchmarks like iozone
indicate that the NCR, 2940, and BusLogic PCI are roughly equivalent. Using
Pentium 90 PCI, Quantum 7200 RPM drives and 2.0.1 the results were about 3-4
MB/sec for read and write depending on block sizes (this is from memory). I
remember benching my 1742 on 1.1 DX-50 using a 5400 RPM SCSI-1 drive and
getting about 900K/sec...  As to reliabilty, its hard to say as we have a
heap of problems lately with our news and web machines no matter WHAT
controller we put in there : (. Best bang for the buck is NCR - but you need
the BIOS support for that if you buy the single chip contoller card...
Havent tried 2.1 yet tho'...

|> krenaut@jax.jaxnet.com (Karl Renaut) writes:
|> > I would love to hear about this experience too, buslogic boards are not 
|> > that easy to buy.
|> 
|> I'd also love to know whether there is really a significant performance
|> difference between a 2940 and a 1742.  While the PCI burst data rates are
|> much higher than the EISA ones, both are well above the Fast SCSI 10 MB/s
|> speeds -- let alone raw disk data rates.
|> 
|> Given that I already have a 1742, the cost of buying a 2940 is about the
|> same as buying a PCI/EISA motherboard over a standard PCI one.  The 2940
|> driver also requires an FDISK table (which I *might* be able to wedge onto
|> my existing boot disk, but ...).  Not to mention that the 1742 driver is
|> most definitely stable and robust!
|> 
|> -- 
|> [ /tom haapanen -- tomh@metrics.com -- software metrics inc -- waterloo, ont ]
|> [ "plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth"              -- aristotle ]