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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: SCSI installation
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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man
Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 02-15-2001 12:11 AM
Josh, I don't think it can be done without major problems. Pulling a hard drive (either IDE or SCSI) out of a computer while it is running is like disconnecting your drive shaft at 70MPH! You may not only damage the drive and/or its programs, but it could toast the controllers or main board.(My opinion - do as you wish. Eventually, when things are just right, you'll say OOPS!). Even if someone says "sure", no problem I would never do it. Kind of reminds me of a friend of mine who always switched around his keyboard from one operating computer to another. I said to him not to do it, and he laughs, said he never had any problem doing it. Well, a week later, he blew the mainboard and the keyboard fuse on the main board. Murphy's Law strikes again! Naturally, the main board protects a small-specialized cheap fuse (which is a pain in the butt to change) by blowing first. It is never a good idea to disconnect any component from any electronic device without removing the power first. I don't even trust Microsoft when it says "It is now safe to plug in your...." Also reminds me of a person who did not unplug the ATX power supply before she pulled out a modem. It ruined the main board and modem because there was still contact potential on those components. Even main board manufacturers will warn you to make sure you disconnect the power from the computer before you yank any component out of it.
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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 02-15-2001 07:57 AM
I'm not sure SCSI is very forgiving of removable media. SCSI was primarily a Mac medium for many years, and it was bad news to connect or disconnect ANY SCSI device while things were running. It almost always led to a crash.It might be possible to do such a thing in the USB world, but you would probably be taking a big performance hit. Mark Lensenmayer
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"As a moral to young men who come down to the city, don't go round breaking people's tambourines."
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-15-2001 09:00 AM
There are some pieces of hardware which use SCSI drives which are designed to be hot-swappable. More specifically, the drives themselves are standard, but the hardware/software itself is designed to allow the drives to be removed and replaced while the system is running.
Network Appliance file servers allow this, as do Sun A1000 disk arrays. The purpose is to allow swapping a replacement drive for one that is going bad. You give a software command to spin down the bad drive, then you swap the drives and give another software command to make the new drive part of the RAID array. In Netapp boxes, this requires that you have at least one drive configured as a hot spare.
Some server-type PC hardware allows this as well, but I'm not terribly familiar with it. I doubt that you could do this with a garden-variety PC...even the enclosures which allow easily swapping drives among machines aren't usually supposed to be removed without powering down the machine.
Most external SCSI items can be connected while the machine is running, but (with NT and Solaris, at least), you still will need to reboot the machine to get it to recognize the existance of the newly added (disk, tape drive, etc.).
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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays
Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 02-15-2001 11:53 PM
If I had my system to build again, I would get an add-on SCSI port adapter and not one built into the motherboard. I've had trouble with throughput, and no way to upgrade it.FYI, Seagate drives with a "C" suffix, have 80-pin SCA connectors, and are "hot-swappable". They are designed for this. ------------------
Better Projection Pays!
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-18-2001 07:07 AM
Overall throughput is higher with SCSI, even though ATA drives "appear" to be almost as fast (in bursts, but not continuously). SCSI also takes some of the load off of the CPU, which can significantly increase performance on a system with lots of disk activity (news server, file server, etc.).
Note, too, that there are many other SCSI devices besides disks; scanners, CD-R drives, tape drives, etc. all require SCSI for top performance.
I don't trust IDE RAID...
For desktop PC use, I agree that SCSI is probably overkill, but I've been using it for years for all different purposes and have had far fewer problems with SCSI than with IDE. It's actually really simple to set up a SCSI chain as long as you remember that each device needs a unique ID number and that each chain must be terminated.
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Jason Burroughs
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 654
From: Allen, TX
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-18-2001 09:50 PM
Particulary with severs, IDE just wouldn't be able to handle the bandwidth needed, even ATA-100, especially when you consider the availability of Ultra3 devices capable of 160 Mbp/s continous, vs ATA 100Mbp/s PEAK. About the only thing IDE is used for on a server is for the CD-ROMs (at least in the Compaq and Dell servers I've been working with) however even then there are pure SCSI machines. Like Scott stated, to me SCSI is easier than IDE, and some adapter cards are self terminating eliminating that a terminator be used. Also spindle speeds are higher in SCSI devices currently, 10K RPM is pretty much standard now, with the 15K RPMs becomming more and more common. This is vs the 7.5K RPM that is currently the max on an IDE drive. IDE's a great for PC's where price is a major considering factor, but when performace is, SCSI is king.
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) I want the removable to be a slave or second drive, not the system drive. The system disk is going to be fixed(non removable). see if that helps....
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