SCSI2SD

[John H. Reinhardt]

On 5/22/2021 10:29 AM, Zane Healy wrote:
> On May 21, 2021, at 5:15 PM, John H. Reinhardt via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 5/21/2021 3:41 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>>> Does anyone have experience using a SCSI2SD board to replace a Hard Drive on a VAXstation or an AlphaStation?  I’m thinking about using them on some of my systems to reduce the amount of noise.  I’ve gotten used to a quiet office. :-)
>>>
>>> Zane
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I've got a SCSI2SD V5 in my MicroVAX 3100 M95. It sits on the SCSI bus along with the CDrom drive and a couple of 18GB Compaq/Seagate drives.  I've also got a SCSI2SD V6 in each of my two AlphaSever DS10 systems.  I had a few issues with the MV and an earlier version of the V5 firmware, but the last few versions have been no trouble at all.
>>
>> In the MV3100 I mounted the SCSI2SD on a 3.5" 3-D printed mount which is mounted on a 3.5" to 5.25" mount and it's mounted in the front opening next to the CDROM drive.
>>
>> In the DS10's the 3.5" 3-D printed mount is put in the floppy opening.
> 
> This is definitely good info John, how is the SCSI2SD performance on the DS10’s?  I’m pondering using either an AlphaStation 200 4/233 or a AlphaStation 500/333 as a workstation, rather than my DEC PWS 433a or my Compaq XP1000/667, simply due to power usage, and heat generation.
> 
> I just placed an order for the initial 4 V5.2 boards I’ll need.  Once they have V6 boards back in stock, I’ll need to order a couple of those as well.  These should definitely help reduce heat, noise, and power consumption.
> 
> Zane
> 
> 

Zane,

   They perform adequately.  They are no speed demons for sure since they're basically a SCSI-2 (there is a SCSI-2 Mode enable option) disk.  They go about as fast as most drives with a 50-pin interface do. It's been a while since I configured them but I'm sure I have them set to the fastest speed.  The SCSI2SD utility for V6 has a dropdown box with speed choices and mine are either set to "Synch, 10MB/s" or to "No Limit (safe)".

   Truthfully though I haven't used them in a while in the DS10's since I did an experiment with a P410 SmartArray card with two 256GB Samsung SSD's and it worked (and is still working).  The only downside to that is they have to be configured somewhere else since the Alpha MSA utility doesn't understand them.  But once configured (both cards and SSD) then they work great.  The other downside is no boot support so I need to either boot from a normal SCSI drive or the SCSI2SD.  I've thought about the latter, but haven't tried it yet.  Though I have booted from the SCSI2SD before.

   I'm pretty sure at some point I experimented with using HBVS between two SCSI2SD drives (partitions on the same SD since I only have one card in each system) and it worked.  But I can't find any notes so it might be something I intended to do but didn't.

Regards,
  John H. Reinhardt