sean@adelie.Adelie.COM (Sean Conway) (03/09/89)
I'm going to purchase a MicroVAX 3600 and am wondering about different
disk configuration combinations with DEC and third party drives. I'll
be running Ultrix. There are two areas I could use some information:
(1) Performance differences between different combinations Disk Controllers
and Drives.
How can you determine the best price/performance ratio using multiple
drives and controllers?
For example, does it make sense to buy (2) RA82 and a seperate KDA50 for
each drive or do you still get the same performance if you were to
hang both drives off the same KDA50. Can the Q-BUS handle (2) KDA50 and
(2) RA82 running at their peak transfer rate?
What are the variables and algorithms used to come up with these stats?
- Controller Transfer Rate
- Disk Transfer Rate
- Bus Transfer Rate
(2) Disk Drive Combination/Disk Partitioning of Third Party Drives.
Can you buy a MicroVAX 3600 CPU with only Third Party Drives, particurly,
Emulex 9720-1230 Drive and QD34 crontroller. The reason this doesn't
seem possible is that during installation of Ultrix, how does the
installation software know the partioning scheme of the Emulex
drive so that it can create the "/", "/usr", "/usr/users", swap, dump.
and crash space file systems.
If during the installation, you cannot put "system" file systems on
non-supported DEC drives, then it means you must have at least one DEC
drive where all the "system" file systems will live.
Assuming the above is true, can you later add a Emulex Drive and
partition the disk? Is the done by creating your own entry in
"/etc/disktab"?
I already have four inhouse MicroVAX II running Ultrix so I'm very
familiar with DEC hardware/software. Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Sean Conway
Adelie Corporation
Cambridge, MASS
{...harvard!adelie!sean}
adelie.Adelie.comstefan@wheaton.UUCP (Stefan Brandle ) (03/12/89)
In article <22995@adelie.Adelie.COM> sean@adelie.Adelie.COM (Sean Conway) writes: >(2) Disk Drive Combination/Disk Partitioning of Third Party Drives. > > Can you buy a MicroVAX 3600 CPU with only Third Party Drives, particurly, > Emulex 9720-1230 Drive and QD34 crontroller. The reason this doesn't > seem possible is that during installation of Ultrix, how does the > installation software know the partioning scheme of the Emulex > drive so that it can create the "/", "/usr", "/usr/users", swap, dump. > and crash space file systems. I don't know of any nice way of handling this since the installation software is pretty much hard-coded for DEC hardware (as far as I can tell). I got things going by using an existing bootable DEC drive (RD53 of uVAX II) to get up and running, then using chpt to set up a non-DEC drive to the partitions that I wanted (ie. more that 7.5 MB on /, bigger swap, etc.), change the /etc/disktab so that it now knew about the disk, doing newfs on the new partitions, and then copy over the / and /usr file structures by dumping partitions and piping them to restore on the new partitions. Then you go in and beat the /sys/conf/MACHINE_NAME file into submission. One particularly sticky thing was getting a non-DEC drive to be drive 0. The RQDX3 didn't care about somebody else having the higher numbered drives in its address space (drives 0 to 3), but it threw a fix if it had drive 2, but somebody else had 0 and 1. I finally (after getting nothing from three separate DEC sources) told it that it controlled drives 4-7 and that the RD53 was drive 4. With that in the configuration file and the appropriate jumpers set (there was an error in the manual, which didn't make that easier) I finally got everything running. My boot disk is a Wren III running in the 16ms range as opposed to an RD53 running at whatever it runs (about twice as slow, as I recall). Loading programs, swapping, etc is nicer when your b partition (traditional swap) is on a fast disk. > If during the installation, you cannot put "system" file systems on > non-supported DEC drives, then it means you must have at least one DEC > drive where all the "system" file systems will live. Just during installation. Once you are up, you can fiddle around and swap drives to your heart's content. One DEC drive would do all your machines. Disclaimer: I did the above on a MicroVAX II under Ultrix 2.0. However, should be basically the same for a 3600. Let me know if you need more help. I'm not an expert, but I did get it going. Stefan Brandle -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Brandle UUCP: ...!{spl1,obdient}!wheaton!stefan Wheaton College "But I never claimed to be sane!" ---------------------------------------------- MA Bell: (312) 260-4992 ---------
pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov) (03/15/89)
In article <920@wheaton.UUCP>, stefan@wheaton.UUCP (Stefan Brandle ) writes: > In article <22995@adelie.Adelie.COM> sean@adelie.Adelie.COM (Sean Conway) writes: > >(2) Disk Drive Combination/Disk Partitioning of Third Party Drives. > > Can you buy a MicroVAX 3600 CPU with only Third Party Drives, particurly, > > Emulex 9720-1230 Drive and QD34 crontroller. The reason this doesn't > > seem possible is that during installation of Ultrix, how does the > > installation software know the partioning scheme of the Emulex > > drive so that it can create the "/", "/usr", "/usr/users", swap, dump. > > and crash space file systems. > I don't know of any nice way of handling this since the installation software > is pretty much hard-coded for DEC hardware (as far as I can tell). I got > things going by using an existing bootable DEC drive (RD53 of uVAX II) to get > up and running, then using chpt to set up a non-DEC drive to the partitions > that I wanted (ie. more that 7.5 MB on /, bigger swap, etc.), ...... If you can get past your first question (buying a uVAX cpu without DEC disks) the rest is doable. We attempted to purchase a new uVAX 3nnn cpu without hard disks and failed. Unless you have a special source for these, your only real alternative is to purchase a minimal configuration and add to it, or sell of the control- ler and drive(s) that come with it. Note that RD54's are not worth much. (Editorial comment: not only did DEC not offer a uVAX II => 3nnn upgrade, as other vendors have done, but it could not even bring itself to offer a total cpu box swap. From my perspective, one of DEC's most unforgivable "marketing decision"s ever). It is possible to install the system directly on a 3rd party disk by first permitting the installation software to assume that you have a DEC disk (RA81, say) and then repartitioning it afterward. I do not believe that you can modify the root partition, but we did manage to expand the swap space and virtually everything else. Send me a message for details if you actually get to the stage of trying this. greg pavlov, fstrf, amherst, ny