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Swap SCSI Adapter

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Sam Johnson

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Nov 20, 2003, 3:34:12 PM11/20/03
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I have an old 4.20 SP9 Pentium server with 96MB RAM. Drives are duplexed with
Drive 0 on an AIC-7870 and drive 1 on an AHA-2940. There is also an AHA-1510
running the CDROM and tape drive (which recently died).

In looking at new tape drives (AIT-1 will give us plenty of capacity) I see
that many use the LVI SCSI interface. I have an AHA-2940U2W on hand and would
like to know if I can just swap out the AHA-2940 for the AHA-2940U2W, then run
drive 1 on the SE segment and the new tape drive on the LVI segment? Any
problems I might run into? Thanks.

Sam


Dave Lunn

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Nov 20, 2003, 4:24:03 PM11/20/03
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Yes, but you may need to set the 2940 down for drive 1 if it's a really old
drive.
--
Dave Lunn
NSF SysOp
http://support.novell.com


Sam Johnson

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Nov 20, 2003, 4:41:08 PM11/20/03
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The drives are relatively new (7/01). They are both 18GB Seagate Barracudas.
So just set drive 1 the same as drive 0 and no change on the aha2940.ham driver?


Barry Schnur

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Nov 20, 2003, 6:54:20 PM11/20/03
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Dave, the 2940Ux and the 2940U2x require different drivers.


--
Barry Schnur
Novell Support Connection Volunteer Sysop

Barry Schnur

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Nov 20, 2003, 6:53:50 PM11/20/03
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> In looking at new tape drives (AIT-1 will give us plenty of capacity) I see
> that many use the LVI SCSI interface. I have an AHA-2940U2W on hand and would
> like to know if I can just swap out the AHA-2940 for the AHA-2940U2W, then run
> drive 1 on the SE segment and the new tape drive on the LVI segment? Any
> problems I might run into? Thanks.
>

You will need to change drivers -- the driver you are using for the
2940 supports:

AHA-2910B
AHA-2920C
AHA-2930
AHA-2930A
AHA-2930B
AHA-2930C
AHA-2940
AHA-2940A/Ai
AHA-2940AU
AHA-2940U
AHA-2940U Dual
AHA-2940UW
AHA-2940UW Dual
AHA-2940UW Pro
AHA-2940W
AHA-2944UW
AHA-3940
AHA-3940AU
AHA-3940AUW
AHA-3940AUWD
AHA-3940U
AHA-3940UW
AHA-3940W
AHA-3944AUWD

But since you have a 2940U2W (the 2 being the biggie here), you will
need to move to:

AIC78U2.HAM

Which specifically supports that controller -- the list:

AHA-2940U2
AHA-2940U2B
AHA-2940U2W
AHA-2950U2B
AHA-3950U2B
AHA-3950U2D

Dave Lunn

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Nov 20, 2003, 7:35:18 PM11/20/03
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Yes, I think he understood that too. My main concern was since it was an
old server that it likely had old drives.

With 18 gig Barracudas that's not a problem.

Barry Schnur

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Nov 20, 2003, 9:38:40 PM11/20/03
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> Yes, I think he understood that too. My main concern was since it was an
> old server that it likely had old drives.

Could be -- perhaps I misread his post, but it sounded like he was
thinking he could use the same driver...

Sam Johnson

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Nov 21, 2003, 1:23:21 PM11/21/03
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Thanks for the driver info. Looks like I have a Saturday project. But first,
one more question. Do I need to unmirror the drives before changing the
adapter, or just swap adapters and load the new driver?

Sam

Barry Schnur

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Nov 21, 2003, 7:30:54 PM11/21/03
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> Thanks for the driver info. Looks like I have a Saturday project. But first,
> one more question. Do I need to unmirror the drives before changing the
> adapter, or just swap adapters and load the new driver?
>
Fair question, you ought be able to 'get away' with a simple adapter
swap and change of the reference to the driver -- assuming the same
slot is used, you need only make the driver change in startup.ncf.

In fact, if you wanted to get 'cute' about this.

1) Down the server to DOS.
2) Copy the driver for the 2940U2W to the C:\NWSERVER directory.
3) Edit startup.ncf (you might simply comment out the 2940
reference and then copy it to the next line, changing the
reference to the AIC78U2.HAM driver and retaining the slot
information.
4) Power down the server, swap cards and connectors.
5) Start the server -- use Ctrl-A to get to the adaptec BIOS
to check the settings for the drives there.
6) Reboot.

If you are lucky, the server will come up without a whisper to you.

Question -- which 2940 driver are you currently using? (Ham or DSK)?

Sam Johnson

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Nov 22, 2003, 5:49:05 PM11/22/03
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Current driver is HAM.
The swap worked like a charm. Thanks for your detailed help.

Barry Schnur

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Nov 22, 2003, 11:17:38 PM11/22/03
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In article <BJRvb.8110$I04....@prv-forum2.provo.novell.com>,
sjo...@compuserve.com says...

> Current driver is HAM.
> The swap worked like a charm. Thanks for your detailed help.
>
Excellent -- thanks for the report back.

Marcel Cox

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Dec 6, 2003, 4:43:59 AM12/6/03
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Sam Johnson wrote:

> In looking at new tape drives (AIT-1 will give us plenty of capacity)
> I see that many use the LVI SCSI interface. I have an AHA-2940U2W on
> hand and would like to know if I can just swap out the AHA-2940 for
> the AHA-2940U2W, then run drive 1 on the SE segment and the new tape
> drive on the LVI segment? Any problems I might run into?

Don't do that. While the SE and LVD channels are electrically isolated,
they are logically on the same SCSI channel. Mixing disks and tape
drives on the same SCSI channel is always a bad idea. In fact, some
backup programs may try to do a reset of the SCSI controller when there
is a problem with the tapoe drive, and this will lead to a drive
deactivation of the disk which is attached to the same controller.

--
Marcel Cox (using XanaNews 1.15.8.3)

Barry Schnur

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Dec 6, 2003, 12:05:21 PM12/6/03
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I was wondering about that with the 2940U2W -- I *think* the TekRAM
DC390U2W handles this differently, but am not certain of that.

Recently I configured a system and elected to not mess with sharing a pair
of hard drives on the U2W side of a 2940U2W with an AIT drive on the UW
connector -- I added a TekRAM 390F (UW) adapter instead.

Marcel Cox

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Dec 6, 2003, 12:24:26 PM12/6/03
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Barry Schnur wrote:

> I was wondering about that with the 2940U2W -- I think the TekRAM

> DC390U2W handles this differently, but am not certain of that.

No both Adaptec and Tekram for the card models mentioned use an SCSI
bridge chip to connect the slower single ended SCSI bus to the faster
Ultra-2 LVD bus.

Barry Schnur

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Dec 6, 2003, 2:53:06 PM12/6/03
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Ah, so even with these controllers, it is best to use two separate
controllers.

I'd guess that would especially be the case with NW 5x and 6x and extended
tape drive operations and the Adaptec controllers.

Marcel Cox

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Dec 6, 2003, 6:16:15 PM12/6/03
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Barry Schnur wrote:

> Ah, so even with these controllers, it is best to use two separate
> controllers.

Yes, but there are other controllers around which have 2 independent
SCSI channels and those are as good as 2 separate adapter cards.


> I'd guess that would especially be the case with NW 5x and 6x and
> extended tape drive operations and the Adaptec controllers.

If you are referring to the longscsi problem, it is not in any way
particular to Adaptec. In fact, the longscsi problem is much more
serious with Lsi based SCSI controllers. Alo, the longscsi problem is
independent on how many devices are attached to a controller. It's
triggered by a single device whatever controller it is connected to.

Barry Schnur

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Dec 7, 2003, 1:47:50 AM12/7/03
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> Yes, but there are other controllers around which have 2 independent
> SCSI channels and those are as good as 2 separate adapter cards.

Understood -- such as the 3940U2W controller or the 39160 Adaptecs or other
similar controllers.

> > I'd guess that would especially be the case with NW 5x and 6x and
> > extended tape drive operations and the Adaptec controllers.
>
> If you are referring to the longscsi problem, it is not in any way
> particular to Adaptec. In fact, the longscsi problem is much more
> serious with Lsi based SCSI controllers. Alo, the longscsi problem is
> independent on how many devices are attached to a controller. It's
> triggered by a single device whatever controller it is connected to.
>

OK -- somewhere I thought I saw this not being an issue with Tekram
(Symbios/LSI) controllers -- I've not encountered it in my servers.

Marcel Cox

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Dec 7, 2003, 5:31:01 AM12/7/03
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Barry Schnur wrote:

> OK -- somewhere I thought I saw this not being an issue with Tekram
> (Symbios/LSI) controllers -- I've not encountered it in my servers.

The primary trigger is the type of streamer you use, not the type of
SCSI controller. Most problematic are changers.

Barry Schnur

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Dec 7, 2003, 12:03:29 PM12/7/03
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> The primary trigger is the type of streamer you use, not the type of
> SCSI controller. Most problematic are changers.

OK -- that makes sense. I only have one client who used a changer (DDS-4 x
6), and we gave up on it and replaced it with an SDLT 320.

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