ins_bac@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Ajay Choudhri) (11/19/89)
Since a deal for a compleye hard drive set-up fell through.. I am now entering the world of home brew HD. basically everyone has suggested that I get the ICD Host Adaptor so that is settled. 1) Can I hook up any SCSI drive to this adaptor(such as the N drives from Seagate) 2) What Controller card apart from the adaptec 4070 and 4000(a) work with standard HD mechs(non scsi). IS there a WD, Xebec or possible OMTI substitution 3) What turns out to be faster, an N series drive or a controller/HD combo. 4) Can someone post all the ram expansion boards out for the ST that allow for either 256k drams or 1 megabits. thanks for any and all help -Ajay Choudhri ins_bac@jhunix.UUCP ins_bac@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU .. !uunet!mimsy!aplcen!jhunix!ins_bac
matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) (11/24/89)
In article <3347@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> ins_bac@jhunix.UUCP (Ajay Choudhri) writes: [stuff deleted] >1) Can I hook up any SCSI drive to this adaptor(such as the N drives from >Seagate) I am now running a Seagate 296N off my ICD. You can definitely hook up the Seagate N series, as well as any Seagate that I know of. > >2) What Controller card apart from the adaptec 4070 and 4000(a) work with >standard HD mechs(non scsi). IS there a WD, Xebec or possible OMTI substitution There is an OMTI ... I think it's 3527, not sure. RLL. > >3) What turns out to be faster, an N series drive or a controller/HD combo. N series by far. Embedded SCSI speeds things up bigtime. > >thanks for any and all help sure... no prob > -Ajay Choudhri > However. While I'm posting this, I have a question. I have an ICD host adaptor, Mega 2 (with an older style DMA chip -- the original one would NOT work with Spectre 128, ICD HA, and a Seagate 251 MFM drive w/ Adaptec 4000), a Seagate 296N, and a Conner CP340 -- the same drive in the STacy, I'm told. The problem: The two drives just will not get along. Both work fine by them- selves (although I don't think I can format the Conner correctly; HDX 3.01 refuses to touch it -- I think it doesn't like my ICD HA). But when the Conner at SCSI 0 and the 296N at SCSI 4 (friend of mine said he had troubles with ICDs in that they wouldn't always recognize different SCSI configs) try to act to- gether, strange things happen. The desktop usually works -- I dumped ~ 40 meg of stuff no problems from the Seagate to the Conner and part of it back. I try to boot Shadow, and after the reboot, I don't have any more hard drives. Same goes for RATEHD and sometimes IDCHECK. Has anyone else had similar problems? Now, I'm going to sell the Conner (or try to), since I simply can not afford to fix my system so it can do what I want it to do. Looks like the DMA bus is being munged, since it takes several reboots after the drives go bye-bye before I can autoboot again. (I'm using ICD 3.41 software) Mike
econadm5@watserv1.waterloo.edu (BENTLEY BH - ECONOMICS) (11/25/89)
In article <5670@umd5.umd.edu> matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes: >article <3347@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> ins_bac@jhunix.UUCP (Ajay Choudhri) writes: [stuff deleted] >>2) What Controller card apart from the adaptec 4070 and 4000(a) work with >>standard HD mechs(non scsi).IS there a WD, Xebec or possible OMTI substitution >There is an OMTI ... I think it's 3527, not sure. RLL. yes - the omti 3527 is RLL and works fine other RLL drives, but for some unknown reason you get 5MB less than on a 4070 when you format any RLL drive. Adaptec 4070a drives are what I'm running on Super with a Miniscribe RLL drive. It's been working for over a year now, no problems. ...Some questions by the follow-up poster deleted..... >Looks like the DMA bus is being munged, since it takes several reboots after >the drives go bye-bye before I can autoboot again. > >(I'm using ICD 3.41 software) > >Mike If you're using the new TOS 1.4 call ICD and get the latest booter as 3.41 doesn't operate properly with TOS 1.4. Recheck your cables, and try disconnecting your drives from the system when it crashes next time to see if it's REALLY the drives causing the problem and not something else. Often a controller can get confused with power spikes and system power has to be shut down completely. ----------------------------------------- Of possible interest to people with two ST's and a large hard drive, I have been experimenting with ICD's host-adapter and have successfuly hooked up two STs to 1 host adapter system with two hard drives on it. I even ran BBS express with both of them at the same time. I'm wondering if ICD is coming out with a dual-DMA bus access for us sysops with 2 STs? Anyone out there heard of hooking two STs to a one-drive system? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail to: Dave Tomesch - econadm5@watserv1.uw.edu.on.ca Super BBS: 1-519-749-1206 "Never say Never!"