jes@math1.mth.msu.edu (Jesse) (07/20/90)
I would appreciate any information and experience [good/bad] about Fujitsu 2392 2GB disk drive with Xylogics 7053. Comparison between Fujitsu 2392 and other similar drives would be nice, too. I'll also need the format.dat entry for 2392. Thanks in advance. -Jesse E-mail address: jes@mth.msu.edu
curt@mischief.ecn.purdue.edu (Curt Freeland) (07/23/90)
jes@math1.mth.msu.edu (Jesse) writes: >I would appreciate any information and experience [good/bad] about Fujitsu >2392 2GB disk drive with Xylogics 7053. Comparison between Fujitsu 2392 >and other similar drives would be nice, too. I'll also need the >format.dat entry for 2392. Thanks in advance. We are running two of these drives on Xylogics 753 controllers. We had a few problems associated with being "on the leading edge" and all :-). If your controller is a pre-May 1990 unit, you probably need new microcode. The old microcode did not understand the way that Fujitsu did extended cylinder addressing. This same problem has been discussed here on the CDC 9772/9773 disk drives (858Meg and 1.3Gig drives in the 14" form factor). The new firmware works fine for both drive types. I have run the following controllers, and all seem happy with new firmware: 753-103 (firmware # 180-002-186 Rev 2.23) 753-107 (firmware # 180-002-271 Rev 2.3) 7053 (firmware # 180-002-271 Rev 2.3) We use our 2392 drives as server, and client root/swap filesystems, as well as user filesystems. They seem to be very nice drives. There are three problems (?) I am aware of though. 1) My hands are bigger than the designers. This became painfully obvious the first time I tried to plug in the SMD interface cables. I prefer the way the 2382 was laid out (you could at least get to the cables... 2392 drive is a bit of a pain). At least they have "A" cable "in" and "Out" connectors, instead of the one connector like the 2382 that requires funky cables. 2) No IPI interface is currently available :-(. I hope someone at Fujitsu is reading this, and takes care of this problem! 3) The drives do not work on a Gould NP1 system, as the drive does the extended addressing a little awkwardly. Actually, we are running one drive on a Gould, but we only use the first 1023 cylinders. If we go beyond this limit, the drive does a RTZ for every seek to a cyl>1023. We have been told by people at Fujitsu that they are working on a new version of the logic board for the drive that would fix this, and negate the need for the special Xylogics firmware. Example format.dat entries: disk_type = "Fujitsu-M2392 Swallow" \ : ctlr = XD7053 \ : ncyl = 1914 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 1916 : nhead = 21 : nsect = 81 \ : rpm = 3600 : bpt = 50400 : bps = 610 partition = "Fujitsu-M2392 Swallow" \ : disk = "Fujitsu-M2392 Swallow" : ctlr = XD7053 \ : a = 0, 20412 : b = 13, 74844 : c = 0, 3255714 : g = 57, 3158757 To use the settings above, set the SW1 for 608 bytes/sector (Switches 2,5,6) closed. The drive automagically adds two to the value set by the switches to give you the 610 bytes/sector. And yes, I know the number of sectors is actually 83+runt in our setup. Slip sectoring, and paranoia (read past experience) were included in the values we used.... Other drives? Rumour has it that Seagate (was Imprimis, was CDC) is readying a 2.5Gig drive with SMD-E and IPI interfaces. I have not seen one yet, but an associate has. I am anxiously awaiting its release... Curt Freeland Manager, Systems Engineering Purdue University Engineering COmputer Network (curt@mischief.ecn.purdue.edu) (317) 494-3715