a946@mindlink.UUCP (Ernie Gorrie) (09/21/90)
Is anyone using this controller with a SyQuest drive? How about with
AMAX II? Now the big question.... Is anybody successfully using this
controller with SyQuest as an AMAX II hard drive?
I'm planning to get this controller to do this, but I'd like it if
someone else had already been the guinea pig. :)
--
No Fancy Signature Here Just: Ernie_Gorrie@mindlink.UUCP
(Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)jmeissen@ogicse.cse.ogi.edu (John Meissen) (09/22/90)
OK, I traded up my C= A2090 to the new GVP Series-II controller. I was somewhat less than pleased with the amount of effort and time it took to get it, and the documentation is minimal (I'm being very nice here), but it came, it installed easily, and came up without problems. Initial reaction.....I'm quite pleased with the performance. I have no hard figures to use, but compared to my old A2090 it literally screams! I can't wait to put some memory on the card. HOWEVER, there is something I just can't understand. My C= controller used to autoconfigure and mount the 3 partitions in about 4 seconds (maybe less, but close enough). The GVP controller, though, takes =>38<= seconds to do the same thing! It sits there with the disk light blinking and the heads thrashing around for over half a minute! Anybody got a clue as to what's going on? John Meissen .............................. Oregon Advanced Computing Institute jmeissen@oacis.org (Internet) (503) 690-1209 - work ..!sequent!oacis!jmeissen (UUCP) (503) 230-2724 - home jmeissen (BIX)
andy@cbmvax.commodore.com (Andy Finkel) (09/26/90)
In article <12322@ogicse.ogi.edu> jmeissen@ogicse.cse.ogi.edu (John Meissen) writes: >HOWEVER, there is something I just can't understand. My C= controller >used to autoconfigure and mount the 3 partitions in about 4 seconds >(maybe less, but close enough). The GVP controller, though, takes >=>38<= seconds to do the same thing! It sits there with the disk light >blinking and the heads thrashing around for over half a minute! > >Anybody got a clue as to what's going on? > > >John Meissen .............................. Oregon Advanced Computing Institute I can think of three possibilities: I can't really tell which it is from the info supplied, so I'll list all three... 1) There are some drives that take a long time (>30 seconds) to become active enough to actually respond to SCSI commands. On the 2091 we put in a jumper on the board which, if set, extends the time the controller spends waiting for each drive. Perhaps your GVP card has a similar jumper and its set ? Otherwise they may have played it safe, and did a worst case wait for each SCSI unit. If this is the case, you may be able to speed the boot process up a bit by changing the unit number to the one they scan first. 2) For some reason, your drive may be validating during each boot. It the screen has opened and the disk light is flashing, break out of the startup-sequence and use the c:Info command to check on the drive state. 3) their startup-sequence may be doing a lot more than the one you used to use 4) If the validator isn't the problem, and the GVP supports a Rigid Disk Block, and the flashing happens before the initial CLI opens, perhaps it is having trouble reading in the Rigid Disk Block. Or is could be for other reasons, of course. >jmeissen@oacis.org (Internet) (503) 690-1209 - work andy -- andy finkel {uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "If you don't open the manual, all features are undocumented." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
jmeissen@ogicse.ogi.edu (John Meissen) (09/27/90)
In article <12322@ogicse.ogi.edu> jmeissen@ogicse.cse.ogi.edu (John Meissen) writes: >HOWEVER, there is something I just can't understand. My C= controller >used to autoconfigure and mount the 3 partitions in about 4 seconds >(maybe less, but close enough). The GVP controller, though, takes >=>38<= seconds to do the same thing! It sits there with the disk light >blinking and the heads thrashing around for over half a minute! > >Anybody got a clue as to what's going on? Well, thanks to all the people who responded. The correct answer turns out to be one of the few things documented in the manual. The controller is polling the bus for all 7 possible SCSI devices. By setting the Last LUN option in the Prep step the problem goes away. Why does the drive thrash around the way it does? Who knows. It's a Seagate. -- John Meissen .............................. Oregon Advanced Computing Institute jmeissen@oacis.org (Internet) | "That's the remarkable thing about life; ..!sequent!oacis!jmeissen (UUCP) | things are never so bad that they can't jmeissen (BIX) | get worse." - Calvin & Hobbes