THE QUESTION:
I'd like to operate fast, wide, differential SCSI disks from a SS5
under Solaris 2.3 or 2.4. Sun says that their SBus card (X1062A) is
supported only for SS1000 and SS2000 machines. A local Sun source says
that it should work on a SS5 but there are no promises. Surely there
are others out there running wide disks on SS5s and SS20s. How is it
done? Are there 3rd party SBus cards?
THE ANSWERS
A Sun support person on the net reported a recent (October 1994) update
to the Sun Field Engineer's Handbook on this issue. The Differential
Wide SCSI (DWIS/S) card (X1062A) is now supported on SS10, SS20, SS1000
and SS2000 machines. Relevant notes on the document are:
Solaris 2.3 required (I assume 2.4 is also fine)
Install patch 101378-01 (I Don't know if this is required under 2.4
and I've located up to 101378-09 on the net.)
Set `scsi_options=0x3f8' in `/etc/system'
The Sun 2.1GB drive required 0420 firmware (370-1412-03) for
optimal performance. Set `scsi_options=0xf8' if older drive
firmware is used.
Other respondants reported correct operation on SS10s and SS20s. Many
people speculate that the card should work on an SS5 but there's no
experience and it remains unsupported by Sun. I don't plan to try
since I now have funding for a SS20.
Alternatively, `Performance Technologies' (email `support@pt.com') have
a card which may be supported on a wider range of SPARCs.
THE GLORY
db@med-in.uni-sb.de (Dieter Becker)
jmho@cogsci.edinburgh.ac.uk (Jeremy Olsen)
simon@horizon.cc.huji.ac.il (Simon Shickman)
Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au (Kevin Sheehan)
rsmith@gomez.msfc.nasa.gov (Bob Smith)
pstat1!crm@uunet.uu.net (Charles Mengel)
jmarble@cambric.com (Jeff Marble)
sozoa@atmel.com (Steve Ozoa)
sysadmin@odetics.com (David Rossman)
white@erim.org (Brian White)
louis@meg.saic.com (Louis Brune)
-- James Ashton System Administrator VK1XJA Department of Systems Engineering Voice +61 6 249 0681 Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering FAX +61 6 279 8088 Australian National University Email James.Ashton@anu.edu.au Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
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