3 Dec
2023
3 Dec
'23
8:27 a.m.
That is my question.
I have used a couple of versions of the SCSI2SD boards in the past with
Viking, Emulex QC07, DEC RQXZ1 controllers in the past, and also direct
connections to MicroVax SCSI buss's.
There are other manufacturers of these SD to SCSI emulators now. What is
the current SOA? What works, what doesn't work with DEC hardware?
Doug
3 Dec
3 Dec
9:41 a.m.
On 03/12/2023 16:27, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
That is my question.
I have used a couple of versions of the SCSI2SD boards in the past
with Viking, Emulex QC07, DEC RQXZ1 controllers in the past, and also
direct connections to MicroVax SCSI buss's.
There are other manufacturers of these SD to SCSI emulators now. What
is the current SOA? What works, what doesn't work with DEC hardware?
Doug
I've never used any of these boards but if you leaf through "digital
diggings" back catalogue on Youtube (e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKBDY9lluRo) you can find that he's been
working on getting BlueSCSI working with a VAXstation 3100. I thought
he'd also done the same for DEC Alpha systems but I can't find that
video, so I may have imagined it! But the BlueSCSI compatibility page
does list a few Alpha systems: https://bluescsi.com/docs/Compatibility.
There are reports of ZuluSCSI working with some Alpha systems too.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
antonio(a)acarlini.com
9:49 a.m.
On Dec 3, 2023, at 8:27 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
That is my question.
I have used a couple of versions of the SCSI2SD boards in the past with Viking, Emulex
QC07, DEC RQXZ1 controllers in the past, and also direct connections to MicroVax SCSI
buss's.
There are other manufacturers of these SD to SCSI emulators now. What is the current SOA?
What works, what doesn't work with DEC hardware?
Doug
In 2021, one of the projects during my Sabbatical was to work over my VAXstation 4000’s.
As part of this, I bought some SCSI2SD boards, and got one working in my VAXstation
4000/90. I planned to do the same with the VAXstation 4000/60 I have in a rack, but it’s
still running off of a rack mount BA350, and a couple old SCSI drives. I should probably
look into what it would take to put a SCSI2SD board in a SBB.
I need to find time to work on my PDP-11/23+ and PDP-11/73, as I’m sure I need to replace
the caps in the Powersupplies, so I haven’t tried to drive a SCSI2SD board with a Viking
QDT.
Zane
11:16 a.m.
On 12/3/2023 10:27 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
That is my question.
I have used a couple of versions of the SCSI2SD boards in the past with Viking, Emulex
QC07, DEC RQXZ1 controllers in the past, and also direct connections to MicroVax SCSI
buss's.
There are other manufacturers of these SD to SCSI emulators now. What is the current
SOA? What works, what doesn't work with DEC hardware?
Doug
State of the Art SCSI replacement is the ZuluSCSI RP2040 which is from the same people as
SCSI2HD (I think - at least the same US Store). In any case the SCSI2HD is generally out
of stock unless there is some NOS left. The ZuluSCSI is what is in production now.
It's under continual development with fixes and new features are being added (for
better or worse). I have two in a MicroVAX3100-95. One is the main file systems - I have
a 256GB SD card where there are 4 drives allocated. There are two 50GB main drives and 2
9GB system drives. I have them mirrored under VMS Volume Shadowing. I aim to use about
50% of the capacity of the SD card to allow plenty of space for the card's firmware to
do wear leveling. They are SAMSUNG PRO Endurance cards with an estimated endurance of
140k hours. The other ZuluSCSI RP2040 card is mounted for external access and is the
backup device. This gets rotated regularly.
All that said, in the MV3100 they are still slower by a touch than rotating disks. But
after having several Ebay SCSI disks have controller issues (shorting and burnt out
controllers) I am hoping these are more trouble free.
I also have 2 older SCSI2HD in my AlphaServer DS10 systems for removable storage. When I
get a chance I am swapping them out for the ZuluSCSI RP2040 models because they are
slightly faster and much easier to manage.
The ZuluSCSI is a hybrid of the SCSI2HD hardware and SCSI firmware and the BlueSCSI
management firmware. With the SCSI2HD you needed a utility (mostly) to mange the settings
of the SCSI2HD card. COpying the data to the card usually meant using a utility like dd
or something that could write to specific places on the card. With the ZuluSCI you format
the SD card in FAT or EX-FAT (if your disks are bigger than 4GB) and put them on the card
with a specific name format. The documentation explains it all pretty clearly.
www.zuluscsi.com - US Store and some documentation
https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/wiki/ZuluSCSI-Manual - Documentation
https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware - firmware
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WB3D5GQ - Samsung PRO Endurance
https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/memory-card/micro-sd-pro… -
marketing info
--
John H. Reinhardt
11:19 a.m.
On 12/3/2023 10:27 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
That is my question.
I have used a couple of versions of the SCSI2SD boards in the past with Viking, Emulex
QC07, DEC RQXZ1 controllers in the past, and also direct connections to MicroVax SCSI
buss's.
There are other manufacturers of these SD to SCSI emulators now. What is the current
SOA? What works, what doesn't work with DEC hardware?
Doug
State of the Art SCSI replacement is the ZuluSCSI RP2040 which is from the same people as
SCSI2HD (I think - at least the same US Store). In any case the SCSI2HD is generally out
of stock unless there is some NOS left. The ZuluSCSI is what is in production now.
It's under continual development with fixes and new features are being added (for
better or worse). I have two in a MicroVAX3100-95. One is the main file systems - I have
a 256GB SD card where there are 4 drives allocated. There are two 50GB main drives and 2
9GB system drives. I have them mirrored under VMS Volume Shadowing. I aim to use about
50% of the capacity of the SD card to allow plenty of space for the card's firmware to
do wear leveling. They are SAMSUNG PRO Endurance cards with an estimated endurance of
140k hours. The other ZuluSCSI RP2040 card is mounted for external access and is the
backup device. This gets rotated regularly.
All that said, in the MV3100 they are still slower by a touch than rotating disks. But
after having several Ebay SCSI disks have controller issues (shorting and burnt out
controllers) I am hoping these are more trouble free.
I also have 2 older SCSI2HD in my AlphaServer DS10 systems for removable storage. When I
get a chance I am swapping them out for the ZuluSCSI RP2040 models because they are
slightly faster and much easier to manage.
The ZuluSCSI is a hybrid of the SCSI2HD hardware and SCSI firmware and the BlueSCSI
management firmware. With the SCSI2HD you needed a utility (mostly) to mange the settings
of the SCSI2HD card. COpying the data to the card usually meant using a utility like dd
or something that could write to specific places on the card. With the ZuluSCI you format
the SD card in FAT or EX-FAT (if your disks are bigger than 4GB) and put them on the card
with a specific name format. The documentation explains it all pretty clearly.
www.zuluscsi.com - US Store and some documentation
https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/wiki/ZuluSCSI-Manual - Documentation
https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware - firmware
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WB3D5GQ - Samsung PRO Endurance
https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/memory-card/micro-sd-pro… -
marketing info
--
John H. Reinhardt
1:18 p.m.
On 12/3/2023 2:19 PM, John H. Reinhardt via cctalk wrote:
On 12/3/2023 10:27 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk
wrote:
Thanks, now I know what to ask for for Christmas!
The only conflict I ever ran into was a Viking QDO would work in a
MicroVax II, but not in a PDP-11.
The other problem I ran into was when I removed the SCSI bus termination
resistor pack from a V5 SCSI2SD and forgot the orientation on how to
re-install it.
That is my question.
I have used a couple of versions of the SCSI2SD boards in the past
with Viking, Emulex QC07, DEC RQXZ1 controllers in the past, and also
direct connections to MicroVax SCSI buss's.
There are other manufacturers of these SD to SCSI emulators now. What
is the current SOA? What works, what doesn't work with DEC hardware?
Doug
State of the Art SCSI replacement is the ZuluSCSI RP2040 which is from
the same people as SCSI2HD (I think - at least the same US Store). In
any case the SCSI2HD is generally out of stock unless there is some
NOS left. The ZuluSCSI is what is in production now.
It's under continual development with fixes and new features are being
added (for better or worse). I have two in a MicroVAX3100-95. One is
the main file systems - I have a 256GB SD card where there are 4
drives allocated. There are two 50GB main drives and 2 9GB system
drives. I have them mirrored under VMS Volume Shadowing. I aim to use
about 50% of the capacity of the SD card to allow plenty of space for
the card's firmware to do wear leveling. They are SAMSUNG PRO
Endurance cards with an estimated endurance of 140k hours. The other
ZuluSCSI RP2040 card is mounted for external access and is the backup
device. This gets rotated regularly.
All that said, in the MV3100 they are still slower by a touch than
rotating disks. But after having several Ebay SCSI disks have
controller issues (shorting and burnt out controllers) I am hoping
these are more trouble free.
I also have 2 older SCSI2HD in my AlphaServer DS10 systems for
removable storage. When I get a chance I am swapping them out for the
ZuluSCSI RP2040 models because they are slightly faster and much
easier to manage.
The ZuluSCSI is a hybrid of the SCSI2HD hardware and SCSI firmware and
the BlueSCSI management firmware. With the SCSI2HD you needed a
utility (mostly) to mange the settings of the SCSI2HD card. COpying
the data to the card usually meant using a utility like dd or
something that could write to specific places on the card. With the
ZuluSCI you format the SD card in FAT or EX-FAT (if your disks are
bigger than 4GB) and put them on the card with a specific name
format. The documentation explains it all pretty clearly.
www.zuluscsi.com - US Store and some documentation
https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/wiki/ZuluSCSI-Manual -
Documentation
https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware - firmware
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WB3D5GQ - Samsung PRO Endurance
https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/memory-card/micro-sd-pro…
- marketing info
169
days inactive
169
days old
5 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Antonio Carlini -
Douglas Taylor -
John H. Reinhardt -
Zane Healy