dennis@PEANUTS.NOSC.MIL (Dennis Cottel) (09/09/88)
I am considering buying a DSP3500 server to use as an Ethernet gateway, to run network servers (registry, location broker, printers, etc.), and to use as a general computation server. I am wondering about including a cassette tape drive on this system. Since the one on my DN3000 stops all activity at times when in use, I am concerned that the use of one on the server would interfere with proper operation of the TCP gateway and other servers. Does anyone have any experience to refute (or confirm) this? Dennis Cottel Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA 92152 (619) 553-1645 dennis@nosc.MIL sdcsvax!noscvax!dennis
krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (09/09/88)
Are you running SR9.7 or an earlier version? The operation of the cartridge
drive got better when we switched to SR9.7 -- it's not great, but the node
doesn't come to a complete stop (which it did with SR9.5 due to a software
bug that had the disk controller and the tape controller using the same
lock flags). Having at least 4MB on the node seems to help, too, since the
node doesn't have to be paging as often while the tape is running.
-- David Krowitz
krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109)
krowitz%richter@eddie.mit.edu
krowitz%richter@athena.mit.edu
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet
(in order of decreasing preference)
P.S. These observations come from a DN3000 and DN4000 which have both 350 MB
disks and cartridge tapes. I assume that the DN3500/4500 use the same
controllers and I/O bus structure as the DN4000 (which I understand has
a slightly different bus and the DN3000 -- despite that fact that they
are all IBM-AT compatible!).rees@MAILGW.CC.UMICH.EDU (Jim Rees) (09/10/88)
P.S. These observations come from a DN3000 and DN4000 which have both 350 MB
disks and cartridge tapes. I assume that the DN3500/4500 use the same
controllers and I/O bus structure as the DN4000 (which I understand has
a slightly different bus and the DN3000 -- despite that fact that they
are all IBM-AT compatible!).
I have heard (but not verified for myself) that the 3500/4500 do not have
the annoying grind-to-a-halt feature that the 3000/4000 have.
-------pha@zippy.eecs.umich.edu (Paul Anderson) (09/12/88)
Two quick comments about cartridge tape drives on Apollos: 1) Pre sr10 can read, but not write cart tapes with a blocking factor of something other than 1. In particular, I have read many Sun tar tapes with a blocking factor of 20. (Note - some Sun tapes are low density and can't be read on the high density drive on the Apollo). 2) At SR10, my DN4000 lets me use my cartridge tape drive without hogging my node. I can still use it for normal operations, such as edit, compile cycles or whatever. The improvement is absolutely fantastic, believe me. I am assuming, but don't yet know for a fact, that the DN3000 is similar. I hope to know in a day or two. Paul Anderson CAEN