zyda@TROUBLE.CS.NPS.NAVY.MIL (michael zyda) (10/03/89)
I hear that the Introl Company has optical disks that can be plugged
into a SCSI interface on the IRIS. Does anyone have any experience
with these drives? Are there other manufacturers that provide
optical drives for the IRIS? Does SGI have plans for providing
such a capability (and by when)?
Thank you for any responses.
Michael Zydamarkb@denali.sgi.com (Mark Bradley) (10/03/89)
In article <8910022156.AA16481@trouble.cs.nps.navy.mil>, zyda@TROUBLE.CS.NPS.NAVY.MIL (michael zyda) writes: > > I hear that the Introl Company has optical disks that can be plugged > into a SCSI interface on the IRIS. Does anyone have any experience > with these drives? Are there other manufacturers that provide > optical drives for the IRIS? Does SGI have plans for providing > such a capability (and by when)? > > Thank you for any responses. > > Michael Zyda This was brought up here before. Let me reiterate the information from that discussion; 1)Introl has announced such a product. 2)SGI was not involved with the development or testing. 3)There are reports that this product does not work correctly/reliably. 4)SGI does not endorse this product in any way, shape or form. 5)Your SGI salesperson DOES have a list of 3rd party suppliers that may be able to help you. (Products from vendors on this list have presumably been blessed in some manner by SGI.) 6)SGI does not sell a WORM, and probably won't unless there is sufficient customer demand to warant such product development internally. There are 3rd party suppliers for WORM. 7)SGI does not yet sell or support MO drives (erasable optical). markb -- Mark Bradley "Faster, faster, until the thrill of IO Subsystems speed overcomes the fear of death." Silicon Graphics Computer Systems Mountain View, CA ---Hunter S. Thompson
markb@denali.sgi.com (Mark Bradley) (10/05/89)
In article <42458@sgi.sgi.com>, markb@denali.sgi.com (Mark Bradley) writes: > In article <8910022156.AA16481@trouble.cs.nps.navy.mil>, zyda@TROUBLE.CS.NPS.NAVY.MIL (michael zyda) writes: > > > > I hear that the Introl Company has optical disks that can be plugged > > into a SCSI interface on the IRIS. Does anyone have any experience > > with these drives? Are there other manufacturers that provide > > optical drives for the IRIS? Does SGI have plans for providing > > such a capability (and by when)? > > > > Thank you for any responses. > > > > Michael Zyda > > This was brought up here before. Let me reiterate the information from that > discussion; > > 1)Introl has announced such a product. > > 2)SGI was not involved with the development or testing. > > 3)There are reports that this product does not work correctly/reliably. > > 4)SGI does not endorse this product in any way, shape or form. > > 5)Your SGI salesperson DOES have a list of 3rd party suppliers that > may be able to help you. (Products from vendors on this list have > presumably been blessed in some manner by SGI.) > > 6)SGI does not sell a WORM, and probably won't unless there is > sufficient customer demand to warant such product development > internally. There are 3rd party suppliers for WORM. > > 7)SGI does not yet sell or support MO drives (erasable optical). > Let me clarify item #3 above; I have heard such reports, but can not substantiate them, as SGI engineering has not had first hand experience with this product, as per item #2 above. Your best bet is to try it if you can't wait for SGI's offering of such a product. As previously posted, SGI has not announced such a product, so it's your choice. Good luck. markb -- Mark Bradley "Faster, faster, until the thrill of I/O Subsystems speed overcomes the fear of death." Silicon Graphics Computer Systems Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ---Hunter S. Thompson Disclaimer: Anything I say is my opinion. If someone else wants to use it, it will cost...
piplani@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Michael Piplani) (10/06/89)
In late August I posted that we were getting the INTROL read/write optical disk drive for our personal iris. Sad to say it worked for a weekend, then one of our programs crashed the pi reading a file off the disk (it was the programs fault/not the disks). Everytime I ran fsck on the disk, more and more errors would be found, until it got so bad I couldn't mount the disk. I then tried to reformat the disk ,recreate a file system, run a fsck on the new file system, and then mount it. Every time I ran fsck I would get hundreds of errors, and was never able to mount the disk. Our site was the first personal iris that Introl had installed one of their disks. I understand (from them) that the disk drive is quite robust on the higher end 4d's. It would be nice if someone could confirm that for us. On the whole the installation was very easy. I've been told that they are working on their driver so it will handle the personal iris. One thing that is not made perfectly clear in their adds is that the drive has only one head, so to get the maximum capacity from the optical disk you have to unmount it, flip it over, and remount. The key spec. is that you get 270+Meg a side, formatted. I do hope they get it fixed, because I don't know of another read/write many time optical disk for the IRIS (I've seen adds that TRIMARCHI makes a read/write disk for the vax using the same SONY engine.). Michael Piplani Cornell/Hospital for Special Surgery Program in Biomechanical Engineering piplani@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu piplani@crnlimap.bitnet (607)255-0990
piplani@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Michael Piplani) (10/06/89)
5 minutes after I posted the article on our problems with the Introl optical disk on the PI, I got a call from them saying they were sending out a new controller board for the PI... Stay tuned, Michael Piplani