SUMMARY: Second SCSI bus on 670MP

From: Stephen Fitzgerald (sjf@mod.dsto.gov.au)
Date: Mon May 03 1993 - 00:48:13 CDT


Thanks to all for the prompt and informative replies.

First my original question.

---- Start message
Dear fellow managers,
                     I am about to purchase a second SCSI bus card for our
670 MP. The 3 choices I have been offered by Sun are,

X1052A SBus fast differential SCSI 2/buffered ethernet
X1053A SBus fast SCSI 2/buffered ethernet
X1054A SBus SCSI/buffered ethernet

The 670 is running SunOS 4.1.2 with Solaris 2.x upgrade "real soon now".

The first 2 are the same price and the third is a few hundred dollars dearer.

Has anyone got any suggestions as to which card is the "best"? The 670 currently
has Hitachi DK-517C, Wren 9, Sun 1.3 and Sun 1.0, with additional Wren 9s on
the way.

Will the fast differential SCSI 2 work with fast SCSI 2 disks?

Is it worth getting the fast differential SCSI 2 even though we have fast SCSI
2 disks?

Does anyone know of a source of SCSI information, such as a "What you always
wanted to know about SCSI .." or something similar.

Also, does the "buffered ethernet" offer another ethernet interface?

---- End message

Well, the unanimous response was that the differential SCSI is incompatible
with fast SCSI and SCSI. Since our disks are not differential - that card is
ruled out.

It was also suggested that the X1054A may not be supported under Solaris 2.x. It
is also slightly more expensive and slower therefore it is also out.
 
That leaves the X1053A which I am about to purchase.
 
I received two documents on SCSI, one a Sun document. Both are very informative
and I will send them to any that request them. There is also a book by NCR called
"SCSI: Understanding the Small Computer System Interface" which I have not seen.
 
Butch Deal tells me that the buffered ethernet port is a 10baseT ethernet port.

 
Thanks to the following people for their excellent input,
 
leclerc@epsu10.Clamart.EST.SLB.COM (Leclerc Francois)
randy@aslan.nlm.nih.gov (Rand S. Huntzinger)
shandelm@jpmorgan.com (Joel Shandelman)
cc_gucky@rcvie.co.at (Gerhard Holzer)
deal@ait.nrl.navy.mil (Butch Deal)
cal@soac.bellcore.com (Christian Lawrence)
slf@beta.lanl.gov (Stuart Flicker)
stern@sunne.East.Sun.COM (Hal Stern)
PETER@andataco.andataco.com (Peter D. Bille)
rjp@deakin.edu.au (Ron Phelan)

Regards
==========================================================================
Stephen Fitzgerald E-mail: sjf@mod.dsto.gov.au
Maritime Operations Division Phone : +61 8 259 5992
DSTO Salisbury, South Australia Fax : +61 8 259 5139

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