HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rommel@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Kai-Uwe Rommel)
Subject: Re: Seemingly poor performance
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 11:53:50 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.064636.3349@ica.philips.nl> adrie@ica.philips.nl (Adrie Koolen) writes:
>To reverse things a bit: 1773 KB/s is EXTREMELY fast! At this speed, the
>ISA bus is probably completely flooded. In any case, you can't transfer
>5 MB/s, let alone 10 MB/s, over the ISA bus. Furthermore, you should
>check how fast the sustained transfer rate of the Micropolis SCSI-2 disk
>is. It's a little hard to derive; you should know the number of sectors
>per track, number of tracks per cylinder, interleave and skewing factors,
>rotation speed, etc. I've seen a lot of drives that max out at some
>2 MB/s.
>
>The conclusion definitely is that the ISA bus is the bottleneck here.

I don't think so. I have a DEC DSP-3085 disk and it does about 2.5MB per
second according to CoreTest 2.9 (any caching disabled, of course).
And 2.5MB/sec is what the tech. doc. of this disk says that it can do.

I doubt that the limit of the ISA bus transfer rate is that low, it is
certainly much higher, it's probably always the speed of the disk that
delimits the data transfer rate.

Kai Uwe Rommel

/* Kai Uwe Rommel --- rommel@informatik.tu-muenchen.de */

DOS ... is still a real mode only non-reentrant interrupt
handler, and always will be.                -Russell Williams

Xref: sparky comp.periphs.scsi:4482 comp.periphs:1249
From: zaineb@mips.com (Zaineb Asaf)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.periphs
Subject: Technical Training Seminars
Date: 11 Sep 92 23:24:05 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, California
NNTP-Posting-Host: robin.mips.com
Originator: zaineb@robin


I am posting this for a friend.  Please contact Zadian Technologies at
(408)293-0800 if you have any questions or for any further information.





			Technical Training Seminars


	SCSI, the Nuts and Bolts:		Monday through Wednesday
						October 12-14, 1992

        Introduction to SCSI			Friday,October 16,1992

	Disk Drive Technology			Monday through Wednesday
						October 5-7,1992

 	ATA/IDE					Friday,October 9,1992


These seminars are designed to provide extensive technical training, with
special emphasis on practical applications.  They are based on decades
of experience in I/O engineering, integration, and testing.

Location:	Boulder Courtyard Marriott
		4710 Pearl East Circle
		Boulder, CO 80301

For details, please contact:
	   
	   Zadian Technologies, Inc.
	   1210 S. Bascom Ave.,Suite 214
	   San Jose, CA 95128
           (408)293-0800
-- 
--      zaineb Asaf
UUCP:	{ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!zaineb	(or zaineb@mips.com)
USPS:	Silicon Graphics, 930 Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3650
Xref: sparky comp.periphs.scsi:4405 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:15085
From: jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Quantum PRO-105S problem
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1992 05:53:00 GMT
Organization: is sometimes desirable

In article <swebber.01fc@imladris.equinox.gen.nz>, Stephen Webber writes:

> Jim Pritchett (jdp@caleb.UUCP) wrote:
> >Hello.
> >
> >       I have two Quantum PRO-105S SCSI drives (3.5", 105 Meg) that I have been
> >using for about a year.  They have worked well for me until recently.  I had been
> >using them on two separate controllers (1 on the GVP Combo and 1 on the A2090.)
> >When I put both drives on the GVP Combo, I started getting weird drive errors and
> >SCSI 'unexpected status' errors.  I remembered something from the net about some
> >Q drives not working properly when more than 1 was on the SCSI bus, so I called Q
> >Tech Support.  The guy there said that there is no such problem with these drives.
> 
> Have you still got the 2090 in the machine? If so try removing it! A
> friend with his 2000 had a GVP & 2090a and was getting 'unexpected
> status' errors with the 2090a still in the machine, removed it and all the
> trouble disappeared. This could at least be an option.

No, the 2090 was taken out of the machine.  Thanks anyway for trying to help.


                                                Jim Pritchett


UUCP:  rwsys.lonestar.org!caleb!jdp
 or    utacfd.uta.edu!rwsys!caleb!jdp
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: ae60@iamk4515.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de (Christoph Baumhof)
Subject: HP DAT drive on a SUN ELC ?
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Distribution: World
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 13:06:09 GMT

I'm trying to connect a HP 35470A DAT drive to a SUN ELC.
The DAT is set to scsi id 4, and the kernel gives the message

Sep 11 14:50:36 iamk4515 vmunix: st0 at esp0 target 4 lun 0
Sep 11 14:50:36 iamk4515 vmunix: st0: <Vendor 'HP      ' Product 'HP35470A        '>

when booting. When I'm trying to access the drive,
e.g. with  "mt -f /dev/rst0 status", the driver says

st0:     Generic Drive, Vendor=<HP      >
	3.81mm helical scan cartridge
	Variable record length I/O

but the mt command returns
/dev/rst0: no tape loaded or drive offline
and trying to write something via dd ends in
dd: creat: /dev/rst0: I/O error

A (DDS) tape cartridge is loaded, and the kernel is
SunOS 4.1.1 GENERIC.

Can someone please explain what must be done to make this
combination working? Any help greatly appreciated.

Christoph Baumhof
University of Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: ae60@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
From: lawrence@combdyn.portal.com (Lawrence *The Dreamer* Chen)
Subject: Re: Fujitsu drives are HOT !!!
Keywords: fujitsu
Organization: Combustion Dynamics Ltd.
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:36:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.112204.5000@ukw.uucp> lupe@ukw.uucp (Lupe Christoph) writes:
>marks@mgse.UUCP (Mark Seiffert) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Aug26.134359.7225@picard.agames.com> yaturner@picard.agames.com (D'arc Angel) writes:
>>>
>>>I have a full size Fujitsu drive and you could fry an egg on it (well not
>>>quite that bad, but HOT). So I call up a friend of mine that works at the
>>>Fujitsu Disk Drive Division and he confirmed that it's normal for them to
>>>run that hot. So I make sure that my drive is directly in front of the
>>>power supply to get the maximum air flow, and make sure you're fan is
>>>always working. 
>
>>No, you hope the fan is always working! When I had a system with only one
>>Micropolis 337MB I had the fan die, when I came home from work I thought the
>>computer had died because it was so quite in the room. I removed the drive
>>because it was so hot, and it was literally 'too hot to handle' and I ended up
>>wrapping it in newspaper so I would not burn my hands (it felt like a too
>>hot cup of coffee in a stoneware coffee cup,) and placed it outside in my
>>truck where it was 40 or 50F.  It is a year later and the drive works fine.
>>And I now have two 337MB and a Fuji 600MB drive. I still worry about a fan
>>going out and I remember an old Olivetti that had some type of power
>>interrupter installed on the 110V line before the power supply.  Does anyone
>>know of a device that will remove the power to a system if the internal
>>temperature rises about a certain amount and will not reset until it goes
>>below another value?
>
>I had a similar experience, except it was one of several fans going down,
>so I didn't notice. The power supply died, but not the Fujitsu 2624 it was
>powering. I replaced it, only to have it die again. *Then* i noticed the
>fan wasn't working. The drive is still working OK (knock on wood).
>Now I know why fans are normally mounted near the power supply ;-)

You people have had a real lucky......I had a Fujistu 3.5 520M that ran
in a case with a dead fan for a couple of weeks.  Its in the cupboard under
my desk, so I can't hear it.  Suddenly I was getting lots of read/write
errors....by then it was too late.
 
Now I make a habit to look under my desk once in a while to see if my fan
is still working....
-- 
                                __
 :    _        _  _     _  _   :        _     Combustion Dynamics Ltd.
 :   :_: :   ::_::_ :\::  :_   :   :_: :_ :\: +1 403 529 2162
 :__ : : :/:/ : \:_ : ::_ :_   :__ : : :_ : : +1 403 529 2516 FAX
 EMAIL: lawrence@combdyn.portal.com || dreamer@lhaven.uumh.ab.ca
From: MICHAEL.WILLETT@OFFICE.WANG.COM ("Michael Willett")
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: SCSI-Based RAID Systems for LANs, Workstations & Midrange
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:06:37 GMT
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs

Regarding John Scoggin's request for information on RAID systems for
VINES, Storage Computer of Nashua, N.H. will be showing its new high
performance SCSI RAID 7 disk array platforms at the September Banyan Users
Meeting.  They work equally well with NetWare, workstations like the RS/6000
and midrange systems like the AS/400.

Standards-based, RAID 7 is designed for enterprise-wide computing and
overcomes performance limitations of earlier RAID architectures, providing
a  "real world sustained application performance improvement of 200% to
400%" and dropping the cost of storage to 16 cents/MB.  Their brochures
say they can "mix and match" up to 48 SCSI commodity (3.5 or 5.25 inch)
drives, up to 150 GB.  The RAID 7 disk array platforms come with an embedded
operating system and up to 12 SCSI-2 based host interfaces.  Besides servers,
Storage Computer's RAID 7 disk array platforms can connect to workstations
and midrange systems in addition to IBM's.  Multiple CPUs can be attached to
same disk array platform.

The RAID 7 platforms come with up to 256 MB of cache, eliminating any
reason for using performance-damaging CPU main memory disk RAM.

The drives are "hot plugable" for uninterrupted, transparent operation,
with a hot standby drive automatically replacing a failed drive.

(I haven't yet seen these RAID 7 disk array platforms in operation myself,
but expect to visit the Storage Computer booth at BUI.)

For further information prior to the Banyan User Meeting, the contact is
indicated to be John O'Brien, Director of Technical Services, at
Tel. 603-880-3005 or FAX 603-889-7232.

Michael.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com
From: batman@mb5000.anes.upmc.edu (Bill E Madden Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Seemingly poor performance
Date: 10 Sep 92 13:32:13 GMT
Organization: UPMC

Peter Stein writes:
>The SCSI-2 rate is less than half of the advertised burst rate (5 Mb)
>and not even double the ESDI rate. I have disabled smartdrv caching for
>drives controlled by the Promise controller. What could be wrong here ?
>Thanks for your help.

It depends on the SCSI chip and the DMA chip they're using on one or both ends.  To give you an idea, we had a selection of chips, all pin compatable that we could have used on our box.  The only real difference was that one of 'em did about 1.5 MB/sec transfers, one did about 2 MB transfers, and the last one (and I'm going from memory here) was around 3 MB/sec.  In addition to the SCSI chip, the DMA chips come in different speeds.

Now, I'm not saying that that's what your problem is, because there's a whole bunch of software issues that could slow you up (DMA transfers by block are very fast, your drivers may not be doing that...) but I'd guess that your drive probably isn't using a high speed chip.

		Bats

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
William E. Madden Jr.			| I don't speak for Starfleet
Systems/Software Engineer		| Acadamy, any of my ex-
Computational Diagnostics, Inc.		| girlfriends, or even myself,
Pittsburgh, PA 				| So why would I speak for CDI?
wemst7@unix.cis.pitt.edu		|
madden@cdi01s.cdi.com			|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
We don't have natural disasters in Pittsburgh, we elect ours.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky comp.periphs.scsi:4481 comp.periphs:1248
From: zaineb@mips.com (Zaineb Asaf)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.periphs
Subject: Technical Training Seminars
Date: 11 Sep 92 23:20:59 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, California
NNTP-Posting-Host: robin.mips.com
Originator: zaineb@robin


I am posting this for a friend.  Please contact Zadian Technologies at
(408)293-0800 if you have any questions or for any further information.




			Technical Training Seminars


	SCSI, the Nuts and Bolts:		Monday through Wednesday
						November 16-18, 1992

 	Introduction to SCSI			Thursday,November 19,1992

	Disk Drive Technology			Monday through Wednesday
						November 9-11,1992

 	ATA/IDE					Friday,November 13,1992


These seminars are designed to provide extensive technical training, with
special emphasis on practical applications.  They are based on decades
of experience in I/O engineering, integration, and testing.

Location:	Red Lion Hotel, San Jose
		2050 Gateway Place
		San Jose, CA 95110 (Near San Jose International Airport)

For details, please contact:
	   
           Zadian Technologies, Inc.
	   1210 S. Bascom Ave.,Suite 214
	   San Jose, CA 95128
	   (408)293-0800


-- 
--      zaineb Asaf
UUCP:	{ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!zaineb	(or zaineb@mips.com)
USPS:	Silicon Graphics, 930 Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3650
From: david@talgras.UUCP (David Hoopes)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Why can't QIC tapes BackSpace ? or write anywhere but EOM ?
Date: 15 Sep 92 13:47:39 GMT
Reply-To: david@talgras.UUCP (David Hoopes)
Organization: Tallgrass Technologies Inc.

In article <1992Sep14.174442.21110@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> sdm7g@aemsun.med.Virginia.EDU (Steven D. Majewski) writes:
>
>Why can't QIC tapes backspace? Or write anywhere but at the 
>end-of-medium ? 
>
>Is this a physical device restriction ( I assume that is the 
>case rather than a SCSI command or device driver restriction,
>since cartridge tapes are the only ones that can't do it. ) ? 
>

It is a physical restriction imposed by the design and the specs.  There
are a few types to QIC drives that are block addressable, and can be 
updated.  But these are rare, and generally more expensive.
 
>Could someone explain ? 
>
>I can _imagine_ ( although I don't know ) why there could be 
>restrictions imposed by the method of physical tape movement
>that would exclude backspacing. But WHY no write except at 
>EOM ? [ Rewinding and repositioning at the last-but-one file 
>mark to redo that last TAR file would be a lot nicer than having
>to rewrite the entire tape! On a Sparc ( SunOS 4.1.1 ) the 
>command 'mt weof 2', fails if you're not at the EOM, so you
>can't even MAKE eom at some arbitrary spot. ] 
>

The drives can not write data over existing data.  The area must
be erased before it can be written to.  The problem is that the erase
mechanism is a rather gross mechanism.  It is not capable of erasing a
single track.  It erases all of the tracks at once.  That means that 
if you are trying to erase a block on track 3, then tracks 1 and 2 
will also be partially erased.

That's why the only time you can overwrite a tape is when you start at
the beginning of tape.  The drive assumes that you want to overwrite 
everything and erases all the tracks as it writes track 1.  This is
also why writing a little at the beginning of the tape will make
it imposable to recover the rest of the data that was out there.  It
has been erased.

>
>DAT/DDS tape drives do not have these limitation, do they ? 
>
>
to some degree.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
David Hoopes                              Tallgrass Technologies Inc. 
david@tallgrass.COM                       11100 W 82nd St.          
Voice: (913) 492-6002 x323                Lenexa, Ks  66214        
Xref: sparky comp.periphs.scsi:4441 comp.sys.intel:1679
From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.intel
Subject: What about Local bus (Was Re: EISA vs. ISA - which is better?)
Date: 10 Sep 1992 13:25:02 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: almaak.usc.edu

To start a new thread in this conversation, what about Local bus?

The AT bus is useless for anything which uses the bus, and EISA is
a brave attempt to produce something better.  But is not Local bus
far better?

IMHO, if I had to get a 386 box running Unix which is capable of real
work (as distinct from my current AT bus + ms-dos machine which barely
manages to keep up with the modem :-)), I would love to get a SCSI
controller with a local bus interface to the CPU.  Does this cause
software hassles?

What do such motherboards cost?  I'm mostly interested in IO, not
in fast graphics.  I only run lots of xterms :-)

        -ans.
-- 
Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
From: neese@adaptx1.UUCP (Roy Neese)
Subject: Re: Why the /V option on the ASPI driver?
Organization: Adaptec Inc., Texas
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:22:16 GMT

In article <8SEP199213154425@summa.tamu.edu> kbm8572@summa.tamu.edu (BRYAN MILLIGAN) writes:
> 	I have an AHA-1542A controller and am using the ASPI driver under
> DOS (version 3.0A).  According to the documentation, I need to specify
> the /V option because my card swaps large amounts of data to video memory (?).
> Why?  Can anyone explain this to me? 

If and only if the data pointer passed to the 1542 is a video memory
address do you need to specify the /V switch.  This is due to the fact
that video memory is, for the most part, 8 bits wide and the 1542
transfers all data 16 bits at a time to/from memory.  It can't know if
the memory is 8 bit or 16 bit as there is no real control signal on the
ISA bus for this.
The /V causes all video memory transfers to be done 8 bits at a time.
---

			Roy Neese
			Adaptec Senior UNIX/SCSI Software Engineer
			UUCP:	convex!egsner!adaptex!neese
			Inet:	neese%adaptex@cirr.com
From: wegrzyn@nic.cerf.net (Chuck Wegrzyn)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Finally, Windows DLL for ASPI is done!
Date: 11 Sep 92 15:11:01 GMT
Organization: CERFnet

I finally finished the DPMI/ASPI/SCSI dlls that I have been working on. 
But, like all good pieces of software they have limited testing -- my
own. What I would like is to have a little more testing down with a
small group of people before I release the software to the world. If
you would like to do this let me know. You will need to be fluent in
Windows, and have access to a C compiler. What I will provide will be
the source, some documentation and an example. I will also provide
what ever help you need and I can do.

After all the testing is done, and all the changes incorporated I will
release the source code, the compiled DLLS, test programs, etc. I hope
this adds only a week at most. If you feel that you can't wait, give
me a buzz, and I will give you what I can.

At this time the software includes the following:

	1) DPMI.DLL 	a dll that makes it easy to use the DPMI
				facilities of Windows 3.1
	2) ASPI.DLL	a dll that supports the ASPI interface. It
				supports both a polling interface and
				an asynchronous interface. A callback
				scheme is being worked on.
	3) SCSI.DLL	a dll that implements SCSI commands for the
				common scsi command set, the TAPE
				SCSI command set, the CDROM SCSI
				command set and the DISK SCSI command
				set.
	4) GENERIC.EXE	a program that shows you how to use the DLLS.

There is some documentation, it is not complete as of yet. I am working 
on it. I hope to have .hlp files as well.

Let me know....


Chuck Wegrzyn
wegrzyn@cerf.net
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.intel
From: eletanjm@nuscc.nus.sg (TAN JIN MENG)
Subject: Re: What about Local bus (Was Re: EISA vs. ISA - which is better?)
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:09:10 GMT

ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
: To start a new thread in this conversation, what about Local bus?
: 
: The AT bus is useless for anything which uses the bus, and EISA is
: a brave attempt to produce something better.  But is not Local bus
: far better?
The AT bus is not useless. EISA is a half hearted attempt (because of
compatibility reasons) to produce something better. Local bus would be
useful for standard peripherals and far more so if it were
standardised.

: 
: IMHO, if I had to get a 386 box running Unix which is capable of real
: work (as distinct from my current AT bus + ms-dos machine which barely
: manages to keep up with the modem :-)), I would love to get a SCSI
: controller with a local bus interface to the CPU.  Does this cause
: software hassles?

are there such things currently?  I know (or rather think) Macs have 
this built in but PC motherboards?
: 
: What do such motherboards cost?  I'm mostly interested in IO, not
: in fast graphics.  I only run lots of xterms :-)
: 
How fast network IO do you want? On my 32bit OS (OS/2 on an AT), my 
ftp speeds are generally about 250 to 300 KB per sec. I don't think your
xterms will use that much bandwidth (unless you have more than 1 mouse
or 1 keyboard ;-)). Fast graphics would be more suitable I think.
:         -ans.
: -- 
: Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu

jin meng
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.unix.bsd
From: buick@belay (Patrick D. Buick)
Subject: Re: adaptec suggestions
Organization: Belay Enterprises Inc. Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Distribution: comp
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 17:00:40 GMT

In article <p98he6s@zola.esd.sgi.com> rogerb@pisco.esd.sgi.com (Roger Brown) writes:
>On the line of bundling drivers with hardware, my thoughts are as follows:
>
>With my 1542B Kit, I got hard disk drivers for Unix, Dos, Novell and OS2,
>but not
>CDROM or Tape drivers for any O/S.  I imagine there are few people who
>would
>be running all three of these O/S's on one machine (assuming you have only
>one controller), so here I have all these drivers for O/S's that I don't
>use.
>
>Why not offer a kit for a particular O/S that has all the drivers for that
>O/S
>and nothing else.  If I am paying extra for the included drivers, why
>should
>I have to pay for an OS2 or Novell driver that I will never use?
>

Packaging and distribution costs.  It costs $$$ to manufacture, warehouse and
ship variations of a product, since your stock levels are higher then.  This
extra cost gets passed along to you-know-who.  This is business, after all.  It
is *much* more inexpensive to throw in a couple more floppies in each package.

Of course, why the rest is un-bundled is a mystery... perhaps perceived lack
of interest or general usage for the drivers?  A bit slow to respond to the
market?

The usual.... software is *way* behind hardware in development and never will
take full advantage of the hardware available...  (boy, am I *cynical* eh?) :-)

Patrick
-- 
==========================================================
Patrick D. Buick EMT, EET | Internet: buick%belay.uucp@uunet.uu.net
Belay Enterprises Inc.    | Internet: buickp@cuug.ab.ca
Calgary, Alberta, Canada  | UUCP:..keyword!calgary!pixel!belay!buick
From: sherwood@fenris.space.ualberta.ca (Sherwood Botsford)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Ordinary DAT vs. "data grade" DAT
Date: 11 Sep 92 00:41:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: kakwa.1992Sep11.004155.9653
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada

In addition Sony has lately been making the DAT tapes  
require a higher torque to move compared to the DDS tapes.   
On a new HP drive, I found that on a 30 m tape, I could use  
it, but a 60 m tape would stall about halfway through the  
tape, and I'd get a 4, 44 error.  ("Hardware error.  
Impossible state. This error never occurs...)

I was somewhat annoyed with this.  As a point of pique, I  
no longer use Sony tapes.

On the matter of errors:  At the end of a gig run the DAT  
had 57,000+ recoverable errors.  The DDS grade had none.   
By itself this doesn't mean much as the DDS format has  
error correction up the yin-yang and short of melting half  
the tape should recover from nearly anything.
Xref: sparky comp.periphs.scsi:4522 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:24276