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Topic: SCSI installation

Josh Jones
Redhat

Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 02-20-2001 09:39 AM

I am going to use drive pulls that when the drive is unlocked, it removes power from the drive, so why would that blow a controller card?

Josh

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-20-2001 09:44 AM

I don't know much about graphics stuff, as it happens. I assume that W2k defaults to look for an ISA graphics card, but I don't really know.

The hot-swap stuff really does work with Network Appliance and Sun disk arrays. It's much better than taking down systems that an entire company depends on just to replace a bad drive.

My only concern here would be about swapping drives on a regular basis, which sounds like a bad idea. Drives need to be kept spinning over time and will tend to go bad rather quickly if they are repeatedly stopped and re-started by being removed and re-inserted.

Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 02-20-2001 11:36 AM

Josh, I do not know what causes the drive to return to the "park" position. If you just turn off the power to the drive, the heads might not park properly. Then, the drive could be damaged by bumping or jarring it and screw up the disk. Maybe Scott knows.

Jason Burroughs
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 654
From: Allen, TX
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-20-2001 12:40 PM

Even when the power is disconnected from the power, there is still current in the connection between the drive and the controller.

As far as CPU utilization, there is not much difference between SCSI and IDE (ATA) per a given drive throughput, however SCSI can out perform IDE any day of the week in both burst and constant data throughput. Annother factor, I don't see any 64bit IDE controllers!

On the subject of the video card, Windows will initally detect the video card as a standard ISA VGA Adapter, untill you load the drivers for the video card, and ATI requires this for the drivers to load properly, what type of motherboard and chipset do you have (ie Intel BX, LX, AMD, VIA etc...) that plays a part as well as the proper AGP drivers have to be loaded as well.

Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 02-20-2001 09:58 PM

Jason, as far as I can determine, the ATI drivers may have been a bum load. Reason why is sometimes Windows sees them correctly, and sometimes it does not. I'll try re-loading the drivers to see if it will correct what Bill Gates cannot.

Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 02-21-2001 11:18 AM

On the subject of hot-swapping drives, I just received a catalog from a drive company that shows many different kinds of drives. Their suggestion for hot swappable drives are Firewire/USB combo drives. Both of these technologies are designed for swapability. They have hard drives as big as 75 gig, CD-RW and DVD-RAM drives in this configuration. None of the SCSI drives are hot swappable EXCEPT for drives in the big RAID units, which are somewhat pricy.

BTW, the company here is APS, who have been making drives for many years.

Mark Lensenmayer

Jason Burroughs
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 654
From: Allen, TX
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-21-2001 10:17 PM

I have not installed an ATI card in a 2000 system, only 98, and ME. Unless the card is imbedded in the mobo. For 2000 which I use Matrox cards when I build a system typically, as I have never had a customer request anything otherwise.

To reinstall the ATI drivers you have to make sure that the previous load is throughly removed. One thing you may try, is checking both ATI's website as well as Microsoft's Updates site for updated drivers. Which ATI card are you using? Also what type of motherboard do you have?

Between a USB and a Firewire drive I would recommend the Firewire, as Firewire has a much higher bandwitdth. Don't remember Firewire's thoughput off hand, but USB's is only approx. 12MBp/s.

Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 02-22-2001 01:22 AM

Thanks, Jason. I didn't get a chance to fiddle with it yet, But I plan to uninstall the drivers and re-install. It could be I don't have the updated drivers that run under 2000. Had lots of problems with that. The more I fool around with 2000, the less I like it.

Jason Burroughs
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 654
From: Allen, TX
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-22-2001 10:06 AM

Hopefully it will work.

2000 is acutally very stable, and easier to work with, trick is making sure everything is up to snuff, resources, drivers, etc...

95, and 98 drivers will not work with 2000 as it is a totally different operating system, just has a similar skin. But once you get everything up and running, its pretty smooth.... and FAR more stable than any other version of Windows and even most versions of the MAC OS. (IMO)

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