km@mathcs.emory.edu (Ken Mandelberg) (07/02/90)
I saw a scsi monitor advertised for about $850. This is a box that
plugs into the scsi bus and displays some info on a built in lcd
screen. At very least it shows the last command, I'm not sure what else
from the ad. They do show some pictures of the box monitoring an
exabyte, where the lcd shows transfer rate, error rate, and space
remaining. In fact the display looks a lot like the built in lcd that
some exabyte resellers include in the box.
Can anyone comment on how useful this sort of scsi monitor is? It
strikes me that it would help diagnose some gross problems, but would
be pretty useless with problems that occur in the middle of a lot of
traffic.
At half the price, to me it would be a clear buy, even if I just used
it to monitor an exabyte most of the time. At $850 it takes a bit more
thought, which is why I'm asking for feedback. In fact if anyone knows
of a lower cost unit, I would like to hear about it.
If your wondering why I haven't mentioned the company name, its nothing
subtle. The ad is not where I can get to it at the moment.
--
Ken Mandelberg | km@mathcs.emory.edu PREFERRED
Emory University | {rutgers,gatech}!emory!km UUCP
Dept of Math and CS | km@emory.bitnet NON-DOMAIN BITNET
Atlanta, GA 30322 | Phone: (404) 727-7963andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) (07/10/90)
this group may have covered this before but can anyone point me towards a sophisticated SCSI monitor? i had in mind something i can plug into a scsi bus and display for me the last many (10-100s) commands and responses. price, for now, is no object. andrew@research.att.com
garyb@SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM (Gary Barton) (07/11/90)
In article <11038@alice.UUCP> andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) writes: > > >this group may have covered this before but can anyone point me towards >a sophisticated SCSI monitor? i had in mind something i can plug into >a scsi bus and display for me the last many (10-100s) commands and responses. >price, for now, is no object. We have a couple of Pacific Electro Data PED4000 series of PC expansion cards and software. I sometimes wonder how we got by before we had these things. If all you want is a passive analyzer, ask about the PED 4003 state and phase analysis package. If you require target emulation as well, then ask about the 4033 model. To date, the only problem we have had with these boards is that for high BW transdfers, the data acquistion board is a little too slow. This results in garbled data showing up for faster peripherals (eg. sync xfers). This hasn't been a problem since all other bus phases are handled correctly, and you usually don't care to see all the data anyway. This board requires one full length 8 bit slot of an IBM PC compatible. PED has new product they are developing, the PED 4500 series. Because of the data BW problem, I really wanted the new faster product, but the target emulation package was not yet ready. So they allowed me to buy the 4033, and upgrade to the 4533 when it's ready, with a 100% trade in credit. This should be out in the near term (last schedule I heard was sometime in July). Anyway, here's their address and phone for those interested: Pacific Electro Data, Inc. 14 Hughes, Suite B205 Irvine, CA 92718 (714) 770-3244 Here are some of the prices I was quoted back in January. PED4003 ~$2000 Old product, analyzer only PED4033 $3495 Old product, analyzer and target emulation PED4503 ~$5000 New product, analyzer only PED4533 $6995 New product, analyzer and target emulation
cgn@leo.UUCP (Chris Nieves) (07/12/90)
In article <11038@alice.UUCP>, andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) writes: > > > a sophisticated SCSI monitor? i had in mind something i can plug into > a scsi bus and display for me the last many (10-100s) commands and responses. > price, for now, is no object. > > andrew@research.att.com We've been using the Ancot analyzer for a year or so. If price is really not a concern you should give them a call: Ancot 1755 E. Bayshore Rd Suite 18A Redwood City, CA 94063 (415) 363-0667 Their analyzer can monitor the bus and capture upto 32K worth of trace data at 50ns resolution with time stamping. They also can be either an initiator or target on the SCSI bus. We've found it really handy in debugging our host adapters and getting performance numbers on disk drives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Nieves UUCP : ccicpg!leo!cgn or cgn@leo.ccicpg USPS : ICL North America, 9801 Muirlands Blvd., Irvine, CA 92718-2521 PHONE: (714) 458-7282 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS-I'm not associated with them at all...just like their product.
paul@ppgbms (Paul Evan Matz) (07/13/90)
In article <338@travis.csd.harris.com> garyb@SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM (Gary Barton) writes: >In article <11038@alice.UUCP> andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume) writes: >> >>this group may have covered this before but can anyone point me towards >>a sophisticated SCSI monitor? ... > >We have a couple of Pacific Electro Data PED4000 series of PC >expansion cards and software. I sometimes wonder how we got by before >we had these things.... > >...Anyway, here's their address and phone for those interested: > > Pacific Electro Data, Inc. > 14 Hughes, Suite B205 > Irvine, CA 92718 > (714) 770-3244 > I just wanted to second this recommendation and add a little. We've been using their 1st generation hardware and software for almost 2 years without any reliability problems. Initially, when we uncovered a few problems with their emulator software, their tech support was instantaneous; All information exchange was done via fax, and software fixes were sent overnight express (not to imply that you'll need anything fixed at this point). They have both state and phase analysis modes, as well as both target and initiator emulation. Although we've never done it, target/initiator emulation and one analysis mode may run simultaneously. The emulation is done by writing in a C like programming language that is run by an interpreter; The interpreter is the guy who controls the SCSI hardware during emulation. The analysis hardware is also programable, although the language is quite cryptic, due to the fact that it is run by a little bit-slice processor who executes one instruction every 100 nanoseconds (PED-4001 hardware). You get 32 words worth of program, which turns out to be enough for most applications. The emulation on a PC/XT class machine is somewhat slow. I don't know what kind of inprovements can be attained by going to a faster PC, or how much faster their next generation of hardware is. The documentation is a bit obtuse; You can tell it was written by the guy who designed the system. Once one wades thru it, though, the result is being able to simulate just about anything you want, and being able to look at it in detail. The capture buffer on the 4001 is 2K words; If you set up your analysis to ignore most of the data phase, you can grab 20-30 full transactions which are all timestamped relative to each other. Triggering the capture is configurable and can be based on things like which intiator is talking to which target, what the command being sent is, etc.. (This is when running their state analysis mode of caputure). I've never run their phase analysis, so I can't comment on it's capacity. Just occured to me that perhaps those of us who use this machine could swap and share some of the analysis/emulation programs we have written. Anyone out there interested? In summary, if you're getting into SCSI development, something like this can save your butt. By the way, I have no ax to grind; Just another very satisfied customer! ___________________________________________________________________ |Regards, PPG Biomedical Systems | |Paul Matz One Campus Drive | |914-741-4685 Pleasantville, NY. 10570 | |{..}!uunet!philabs!ppgbms!paul ppgbms!paul@philabs.philips.com | |___________________________________________________________________| path ppgbms!moe!paul@philabs.philips.com