AXDRW@UDEL.EDU, (10/13/88)
kim@amdahl.amdahl.com - writes ... >Attached are the initial experiences one of my co-workers has had >with the recently released A2090A hard disk controller. I have >edited some of Dave's "more critical remarks" [ items in brackets ]. >Suffice it to say that he is less than happy with the product, and >more than a little bit upset. >> I bought a 40 meg Seagate ST251 to connect to my new 2090A disk >> controller last weekend and had a number of problems installing >> the drive. [Most of the problems can be attributed to inadequate >> documentation, and to what appears to be faulty software.] >> >> There are a number of things you have to do before you can get Prep >> to work which are not mentioned in the documentation. If you >> don't do them the system will either crash, hang, or make your disk >> assume unnatural positions. >> >> 1. Don't run interlaced Workbench. don't know about this... >> 2. Make sure your Workbench has enough room on it for the driver, >> its icon, the mountlist, and Prep. There is a nifty icon on my A2090A driver disk called Install, it copies the necessary files to your workbench disk. It even checks to make sure you have enough space, it gives you a choice of what to delete even, and then deletes them for you. What could be easier? >> 3. Turn off C00000 memory using nofastmem. (This one I couldn't >> believe. I should expect Commodore software to work on a stock >> Amiga 2000). DON'T DO FASTMEMFIRST! I didn't have any problem at all using both C00000 memory and Fastmemfirst on my A2000 with the A2052 memory board. >> 4. Check your mountlist entry carefully. The one generated by the >> Install program doesn't seem to work. In particular, the >> "Reserved" field should have a value of 2. Also, verify that the >> number of heads and blocks per track for your disk is correct. Again, it worked perfect the first time. >> 5. If all else fails, try using the original Workbench disk (the >> one that came with the machine). Hey, what a great idea! Imagine them writing it so it works on the default workbench setup, instead of anyone's strange startup disk setup. >> Does anyone know if the fast file system is implemented at the device >> driver level or at the DOS level? The disk access is much faster than >> I expected so I'm wondering if I already have it. The device driver has nothing to do with the DOS format. I did some comparisons using diskperf on my SCSI hard disk running FFS and DF1: read write avg k/sec DH1 374491 262144 310.9 DF1 12136 5190 8.5 The word fast does come to mind... Your milage may vary, depending on driving conditions ;-) >> The controller board came with two ROMs to be installed with >> Kickstart 1.3 to add autobooting. The documentation said that >> Seagate SCSI drives cannot autoboot because of the long latency >> in initialization. The document actually states: "You cannot autoboot with a Seagate SCSI hard drive and an A2090A Controller Card because of the long initialization process in the Seagate power-up sequence." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You can autoboot after power-up, just try the three finger neck pinch. >> After only 2 days of operation, my new Seagate disk started getting >> massive numbers of r/w errors. DOS couldn't even validate it, and the >> whole thing became corrupted. Bummer, I've had my system up for over a week now. With absolutly no trouble. I've got an A2000, 3 Meg RAM, AmigaDOS 1.3, Seagate ST277N (62MB...), and A2090A of course. Hope you get your system working. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Don R Withey BITNET: AXDRW@ALASKA.BITNET University of Alaska BIX: dwithey 3211 U.A.A. Drive Anchorage, Alaska 99508 907-786-1074 (work) 907-277-9063 (home) 907-274-6378 (other home) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Any expressed opinion is my own and in no way represents that of my employer, the University of Alaska.
perley@mazda.steinmetz (Donald P Perley) (10/15/88)
In article <4824@louie.udel.EDU> AXDRW@UDEL.EDU, writes:
+ kim@amdahl.amdahl.com - writes ...
+>> The documentation said that
+>> Seagate SCSI drives cannot autoboot because of the long latency
+>> in initialization.
+The document actually states: "You cannot autoboot with a Seagate SCSI hard
+drive and an A2090A Controller Card because of the long initialization process
+in the Seagate power-up sequence."
+You can autoboot after power-up, just try the three finger neck pinch.
But for a warm boot you could do it off the ram disk, so what good
does the A2090*A* do? Or can you power on, let the boot fail, wait for
the drive to initialize, then reboot?
-don perleyjoe@cbmvax.UUCP (Joe O'Hara) (10/15/88)
In article <12350@steinmetz.ge.com> perley@mazda.steinmetz.ge.com (Donald P Perley) writes: > >But for a warm boot you could do it off the ram disk, so what good >does the A2090*A* do? Or can you power on, let the boot fail, wait for >the drive to initialize, then reboot? Yes. The Seagates take approx. 25 seconds to initialize from power-on. -- ======================================================================== Joe O'Hara || Comments represent my own opinions, Commodore Electronics Ltd || not my employers. Any similarity to Software QA || to any other opinions, living or dead, || is purely coincidental. ========================================================================
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (10/18/88)
In article <4997@cbmvax.UUCP> joe@cbmvax.UUCP (Joe O'Hara) writes: >Yes. The Seagates take approx. 25 seconds to initialize from power-on. > Joe O'Hara || Comments represent my own opinions, A) 25 seconds? My ST-157 takes 18seconds from first power to last "whir-beep" Your mileage may vary. Anyway, the other solution is to buy one of those power sequencers that various people use to power cycle time sequenced critical equipment (like a Seagate drive and a 2000). Give the Seagate a 20sec head start and you should be fine. The other two amazing items are : 1) The autoboot code doesn't try again after a while. Certainly it should move through the available autoboot devices repeatedly until one of them boots. This would allow leaving DF0: either empty or filled with an uninstalled disk as a valid option to getting your seagate to boot. 2) People are so worked up about it in the first place. My personal experience may not be valid here but I find that over 90% of the reboots I do are *not* from power-zero, rather they are of the three fingered variety, instigated from the keyboard. Cheers, --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.