[comp.sys.hp] SCSI tape drivers for HP-UX

lees@frith.egr.msu.edu (John Lees) (02/24/90)

We are using EXB-8200 drives from Perfect Byte, Inc., on our 9000/360 cluster
servers to back up about 2200 megabytes of disk on each server. The disks are
Maxtor XT-8760S and Micropolis 1588-15 SCSI disks (769 mb unformatted, 550 mb
usable in a filesystem). The tapes are on the 98658A SCSI interface
(1.5 mb/sec) and the disks are on the 98625A SCSI interface (2.7 mb/sec).

The disks use the HP-UX SCSI device driver. The tapes use a SCSI driver
supplied by Perfect Byte. (Page 92 of the April 2, 1989 HP 9000 Workstations
Configuration Guide says: "Through release 6.5 of HP-UX, only direct-access
SCSI devices, such as disks, are supported. The use of Series 300 SCSI
interfaces with serial devices, such as tapes, requires non-trivial
modifications to the SCSI driver".) Source for the SCSI driver is provided
with the PE (Programming Environment) product if you want to tinker.

The current release of the Perfect Byte SCSI device driver is reliable. The
8mm medium is reliable. We use 8mm drives to back up all our systems: HP, Sun,
and DEC; and are very pleased with their reliablilty and ease of use.

We have had some problems with the HP-UX SCSI disk driver. In response to our
problems, HP has modified the SCSI disk driver included with the 7.0 release
of HP-UX. HP is also now including the source for a SCSI tape driver, but
with the disclaimer that it may not work.
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 John Lees, Manager of Systems   A. H. Case Center for Computer      OoO
  and Network Software Services   Aided Engineering & Manufacturing  /O
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 John Lees, Manager of Systems   A. H. Case Center for Computer      OoO
  and Network Software Services   Aided Engineering & Manufacturing  /O
     lees@egr.msu.edu            College of Engineering              |
     ...!uunet!frith!lees        236 Engineering Building           (|)
     lees@msuegr.bitnet          Michigan State University           |  flower
     CompuServe 74106,1324       East Lansing, MI 48824-1226 USA   __|__ power
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