15K SCSI 18.2 gb "hot plug"

[neo86]

My b-day is coming up soon so I wanted to give myself a gift by getting some SCSI setup in my system. I found a good deal on this "HP/COMPAQ - 18.2 GB 15000 RPM WIDE ULTRA3 (1.0 INCH) HOT PLUGGABLE HARD DRIVE FOR PROLIANT SERVERS."

It says it's only for proliant servers, but will I be able to use this in my own system? I figure SCSI is SCSI so it should work however I'm not sure if I'll need a 80->68 pin convertor or not considering I can't find any information on it.

I assume to make this hard drive "hot pluggable" all they've done is add an adapter to the back of the drive.

Anyone have experience with this drive or a simliar one? :confused:

[Philip]

Hotswap means SCA drive. You will need an adapter to use it on a 68 pin cable.

That is eather a IBM or a Hitichi (<-spelling) drive. I have a IBM 15k drive in my computer for a storage drive. It is a little slower than my 15k.2 Cheetah. But if this is your first step into SCSI it will do you fine. My girl has had a IBM 15k in her computer for 2 years now. I have not had any problems with eather drive.

Myself I would recommend a hotswap cage. Adapters are not the best item on the market. Watch ebay for a 2 or 3 drive hotswap cage with sleds. It will make life easyer in the long run.

[SureFire]

I have this same setup (non-hot plug) to an Adaptec 29160N non-RAID, but bootable controller (2 Compaq 15K RPM Ultra3 drives) WORKS Great!!!! F-f-F-fff--aaa---a-s-ssssssssssstttt!!! Raptors are for weenies:) j/k hahaha.

PICS HERE: (http://www.fx-55.com/watercool/index.html#SCSI)

You can see the 3 pics of the 2 drives, each one has the 68-80 pin LVD adapter like these. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11160&item=5126405320#ebayphotohosting) I picked up the 29160N controller for under $50, too, though

[MaDSpartus]

My advice after considering a striped scsi setup is to not bother. I like the guy above me use a 29160N controler and I use a single 15k atlas 18 gig drive for my OS. All my programs are on a seagate 10k.6 73 gig and i use a seagate 200gig sata for storage. the 29160N controllers are cheap and ive had no problems with it. I do have a dell perc3 raid controller and it grieves me like nothing else. I should have another cntroller on the way soon to use with a bunch of 36 gig 10k drives for redundant storage, but speed is not the priority there.

Basically get a non raid controller and the fastest drive you can afford. either a atlas 15k, seagate 15k.3 or fujitsu MAS series are all one generation old and the 18 gig variants are fairly cheap. If you can do it get the 36 gig latest generation versions and you'll have drives that sustain > 90 megs /s in throughput. Heh no point in raid-0 since PCI bus cant sustain that kinda bandwidth. Heh and basically since scsi is expensive I use the 10k drive for all the programs cause it has good throughput and loading a game isnt quite so seek intensive.

[neo86]

Thanks for all the replies. I was definitely not considering RAID at all because of all the bad stuff I've heard about it. My real interest in SCSI drives are their reliability and ability to handle high I/O loads. I love that "zippy" feel of a fast drive that no amount of RAM can give when loading up a rarely used program. Currenlty, I only have a 7,200 rpm drive so I'm sure I'll notice some kind of difference.

If I ever do something related to RAID it'll probably be for video editing in which case I'll probably just a PCI-E card with like... 4 cheap IDE hard drives. I've seen a setup like that push 150 MB/s sustained with a 64bit PCI card.

Grr... What's taking people so long with developing high speed non-volatile solid state memory?

[feigned]

I love that "zippy" feel of a fast drive that no amount of RAM can give when loading up a rarely used program. Currenlty, I only have a 7,200 rpm drive so I'm sure I'll notice some kind of difference.

You won't regret this decision. :D

Just don't forget to F6 and have your floppy ready when you reinstall.

[Philip]

If he is using XP it has the drivers for a 29160, a LSI U160 and a Tekram DC390U3W cards all ready. Just drop the disk in and go. No F6 needed. :D

[neo86]

Slight update for those of you who care. :D

I decided to go on eBay for most of my stuff since I've never really looked into it. Apparently, I'm pretty good with auctions. I got a brand new Cheetah X15 37 GB for $93.4 shipped, and a 29160N for $58.60 shipped. The guy selling it also included cables so hopefully there's an active terminator on it he forgot to remove. It's a system pull so it's quite possible. Second hand... but I've never had problems with second hand PCI cards... Solid state components don't get damaged much unless they're smashed or shocked or soaked.

[SureFire]

Hehe - nice! Did your cable come with the right SCA fittings/adapters for that Cheetah and cable end terminator? Keep us updated and PICS!!! hahha if you want. Just a fellow h/w p[H]r3ek

[neo86]

Well, I've ordered all the components. All of them are from eBay. These are the prices including shipping...

Cheetah X15 36GB - $93
Adaptec 29160N - $59
SCA Adapter - $11
2 Device SCSI Cable w/Terminator - $21

Total: $184

I'm kind of nervous as to whether I'll actually recieve the products now that my brother mentioned he got scammed out of $50 for some memory a while ago on eBay. :eek: I got an extra cable since the seller told me the cable included with the card wasn't very long at all and had no terminator on it. If all goes well I should recieve all the components within a week... just in time for my b-day! :D

[SureFire]

I doubt you'll get scammed on SCSI parts. They usually go for the Hot Items like CPU's, Video Cards, Memory that are in demand.

[neo86]

Okay... The last part arrived today (right on my b-day!), and I've setup it up without issue.. 'Cept for one: Where's my speed!? Haha... Exaggeration... I put just my Windows page file on it for testing purposes and it has sped up my computer a small bit. The only benchmark program I had on my computer was SiSoft Sandra which I know isn't all that good, but I figure it should still be faster since... it's an f'ing SCSI drive. So I load it up and do the HD test... What do I see? 34 MB/s!!! WTF!?

What can I do to speed it up and what other programs should I use to test? Hehe... Links would be nice. :)

[unhappy_mage]

SiSoft Sandra which I know isn't all that good
Yep, there's the problem. Remove that and all should be smooth sailing.

Seriously, load Windows on it and try it for a while. The only way you'll convince yourself it was worth it is to discover the wonderful world of SCSI. I have disks from 8 or so years ago which have comparable seek times to my brand new seagate sata, I can only imagine what a new scsi disk would be like.
http://www.mentallyretired.com/h3/index.cfm/u_47426 (http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?u=47426)

[neo86]

Er... I don't think Sandra is wrong in this case. I believe the transfer mode is stuck at 40 MB/s for some reason. It shows that when the SCSI boot info. shows... My drive is listed and there's a 40.0 next to it. I have no idea why. In the 29160N bios it says everything should be running at U160. I might try upgrading the bios of the card since it's pretty old. I've tried HDTach and it gives the same result.

[Vertigo Acid]

It quite possibly is from the SCA adapter; they are notorious for having weird issues sometimes

[Talonz]

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200006/20000601ST318451LW_2.html

The Seagate X15 is a 5 year old drive. 41mbps beginning and 29mbps end transfer rate...

Please do your research before you buy :(

[neo86]

Err... Sorry if I messed up with not updating the drive number/model I was getting somwhere in my previous posts...

It's an ST336752LC. I got it off of eBay instead of the original drive I was planning to get.

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,355,00.html

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/enterprise/tech/0,1084,355,00.html

"Performance
Transfer Rates
Internal Transfer Rate (min) 548 Mbits/sec
Internal Transfer Rate (max) 706 Mbits/sec
Formatted Int Transfer Rate (min) 51.8 MBytes/sec
Formatted Int Transfer Rate (max) 68.1 MBytes/sec
External (I/O) Transfer Rate (max) 160 MBytes/sec
Avg Formatted Transfer Rate 61 MBytes/"

[neo86]

It quite possibly is from the SCA adapter; they are notorious for having weird issues sometimes


Argh... I thought so... Have you used any that didn't give issues? Getting a drive tray/cage/whateveritscalled is seriously out of my budget for this project. :(

[FLECOM]

you might want to check in the adaptec bios that it isnt set for 40mb/s...

or if your card has two 68pin connectors one is going to be U160, the other is UW (40mb/s)

[neo86]

Okay, I checked in the BIOS and it says 160 Mb/s and this card only has one 68 pin connector.

I'm not a SCSI expert but I'm pretty sure a burst rate of 38 MB/s isn't normal at all for a U160 drive.. It definitely has something to go with the SCSI bus and not the drive. My bets are on the 80->68 adapter.

Err... Shit... Just noticed it says on here "ULTRA SCSI-80F TO SCSI-3 68F." Does that make a difference? I see no mention of U160... Although I'm pretty sure SCSI-3 goes upto 320 MB/s my memory is foggy right now. :confused:

[SureFire]

Er... I don't think Sandra is wrong in this case. I believe the transfer mode is stuck at 40 MB/s for some reason. It shows that when the SCSI boot info. shows... My drive is listed and there's a 40.0 next to it. I have no idea why. In the 29160N bios it says everything should be running at U160. I might try upgrading the bios of the card since it's pretty old. I've tried HDTach and it gives the same result.

Is your cable rated for U320 or U160? Quoting another person where I bought my SCA adapters:

"A SCSI chain will slow to the slowest item on the chain. That item can be the controller, drive, drive adapter, cable, or terminator.

Since your controller is rated U160 (assuming you are using the 68pin side), the drive is rated for U160 (assuming you don't have the drive jumpered to SE mode), the drive adapter is rated for U160, check the cable and the terminator. The cable should be orange/white (twist/flat), or multicolored (twist/flat) and the terminator needs to be marked U160."

[neo86]

I'm pretty sure it's U320 compatible. The "auction" I got it off of stated it was " AMPHENOL Ultra320 LVD SCSI CABLE 2-DEVICE W/TERMINATOR." I'm pretty sure I didn't get eBay shafted since the cable is from one of those large companies that sells thousands of items on eBay.

[InorganicMatter]

What we are trying to tell is is make sure your cables are U160 cables. I set up a slightly older SCSI drive in a Linux box one time, and accidentally used 40Mb cables with it. After switching the cables out to 80Mb cables (this was a several year old drive/controller), there was a noticeble speed difference. Make sure you have either U160 or U320 cables, it won't hurt anything to have U320 cables, they will simply be slowed down to U160 speeds.

[neo86]

What we are trying to tell is is make sure your cables are U160 cables. I set up a slightly older SCSI drive in a Linux box one time, and accidentally used 40Mb cables with it. After switching the cables out to 80Mb cables (this was a several year old drive/controller), there was a noticeble speed difference. Make sure you have either U160 or U320 cables, it won't hurt anything to have U320 cables, they will simply be slowed down to U160 speeds.


Haha... I know.. Sorry, if I sounded sarcastic or anything. I was just simply stating that the item description said U320 so I'm quite sure the cables I have are U320/U160 compatible. There was also a SCSI cable that came with my Adaptec 29160N card. I tried it with that one and it still runs at 40 MB/s. :(

Is there anything I should configure on the SCA adapter that would increase my speed?

Right now I have configured the SCA adapter to run the device on ID 15 and Adaptec 29160N controller is on ID 7. There are some other options like... "LED" "SYN" "DLY" "MTR" on the adapter. I'm pretty sure I have a good idea of what those stand for except for the last which I assume means "motor," but I'm not quite sure what it does.

[neo86]

Okay... After racking my head over this problem I've come to the conclusion that it is in fact the 80-> 68 pin convertor. I'm trying to search for one that's been known to work. If you guys have any experience with ones that do please share. :)

[Vertigo Acid]

AMPHENOL Ultra320 LVD SCSI CABLE 2-DEVICE W/TERMINATORAmphenol makes *very* high quality cables, so I wouldn't think it would be a problem.

[`XSX` PC-Parts]

i bought one from a reputable scsi guy on eGay, bought alot cables from him as well..trying to think of his name :confused: mcpricebreakers thats the name, i have one of his adaptors here works at ultra160 according to adaptec card 39160 card, if i can find it i would post the part# on it..
the HD you dont need an id set with just one drive on the line. be sure your adaptor isnt already term'd & you have settings correct in the 29160, worse case set everything to default in the card & reboot should show u160 at least on right side of screen at least..

[neo86]

Okay, just a quick update for those of you who care. :) I got a new adapter and everything's working great. It works at the full speed I expected, and I must say... it is blazing fast. I must say it's pretty loud though. You might not want to get the same drive I did if you're going to be leaving your computer on all day and night. I do leave my computer on all the time, but I've been doing that for so long that loud hard drives don't bother me much. Anyways, here's a HDTach benchie. If you want me to do any other benchmarks on it feel free to ask.

http://thewolf86.home.comcast.net/st336752lchdtach.JPG