13 Nov
2019
13 Nov
'19
8:46 p.m.
Hello All,
In the interest of keeping our HECnet systems up and running, has anyone
had experience with replacing hard drives with a SCSI2SD device?
This is for an AlphaStation 400 4/233 with 2Gb RZ28E and M drives (Seagate
ST32430N and Quantum), 50-pin connector. Also a DEC 3000 M400 with an RZ26
1Gb drive.
Are the SCSI2SD units fully compatible and reliable?
Can you recommend a particular model/brand that works well with our vintage
DEC systems?
If this has been addressed previously, appreciate a pointer to the
discussion.
Thank you,
Jason
13 Nov
13 Nov
8:53 p.m.
Jason,
I can't specifically comment on the compatibility of SCSI2SD with
Alphas, but I have four PDP-11s and two MicroVAXes using them for
several years now. The V5 units have worked well for me. I had some
issues with the early V6 units but those problems may be resolved by
now. I usually install two of them to be able to do disk to disk
backups. This has saved me a lot of time in fixing software related
issues.
Best,
Mark
On 11/13/19, Jason Brady <jrbrady65 at gmail.com> wrote:
Hello All,
In the interest of keeping our HECnet systems up and running, has anyone
had experience with replacing hard drives with a SCSI2SD device?
This is for an AlphaStation 400 4/233 with 2Gb RZ28E and M drives (Seagate
ST32430N and Quantum), 50-pin connector. Also a DEC 3000 M400 with an RZ26
1Gb drive.
Are the SCSI2SD units fully compatible and reliable?
Can you recommend a particular model/brand that works well with our vintage
DEC systems?
If this has been addressed previously, appreciate a pointer to the
discussion.
Thank you,
Jason
14 Nov
14 Nov
12:51 a.m.
Hi Mark,
Good to know...and thanks for the V5 vs. V6 tidbit.
Found something on the Interweb from "Clark's Blog" about resurrecting the
VAXen
https://blog.deadvax.net/2015/10/01/scsi2sd-part-2-of-resurrecting-the-vaxe…
is the following link for "*The SCSI Hard Drive Emulator for retro
computing."*
http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD
Will look into this more very soon, as one of the old hard drives
periodically whines a bit.
Thanks again,
Jason
On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 11:54 AM Mark Matlock <mark at matlockfamily.com>
wrote:
Jason,
I can't specifically comment on the compatibility of SCSI2SD with
Alphas, but I have four PDP-11s and two MicroVAXes using them for
several years now. The V5 units have worked well for me. I had some
issues with the early V6 units but those problems may be resolved by
now. I usually install two of them to be able to do disk to disk
backups. This has saved me a lot of time in fixing software related
issues.
Best,
Mark
On 11/13/19, Jason Brady <jrbrady65 at gmail.com> wrote:
Hello All,
In the interest of keeping our HECnet systems up and running, has anyone
had experience with replacing hard drives with a SCSI2SD device?
This is for an AlphaStation 400 4/233 with 2Gb RZ28E and M drives
(Seagate
ST32430N and Quantum), 50-pin connector. Also a
DEC 3000 M400 with an
RZ26
1Gb drive.
Are the SCSI2SD units fully compatible and reliable?
Can you recommend a particular model/brand that works well with our
vintage
DEC systems?
If this has been addressed previously, appreciate a pointer to the
discussion.
Thank you,
Jason
1:30 a.m.
On 11/13/2019 1:46 PM, Jason Brady wrote:
Hello All,
In the interest of keeping our HECnet systems up and running, has anyone had experience
with replacing hard drives with a SCSI2SD device?
This is for an AlphaStation 400 4/233 with 2Gb RZ28E and M drives (Seagate ST32430N and
Quantum), 50-pin connector. Also a DEC 3000 M400 with an RZ26 1Gb drive.
Are the SCSI2SD units fully compatible and reliable?
Can you recommend a particular model/brand that works well with our vintage DEC systems?
If this has been addressed previously, appreciate a pointer to the discussion.
Thank you,
Jason
I've had mixed success, but I think it's just me.? I have a MicroVAX 3100 M95
(OpenVMS V7.3) that I tried both a V5.1 and V6.02 SCSI2SD card in and didn't have much
luck.? Small amounts of I/O process okay - I could INIT a set of drives and look at the
empty disk, but do a COPY of more than a few files and it would go into Mount Verification
and eventually the SCSI bus locked up and the system would hang for a long time.? Usually
I got out by pressing the interrupt button on the back of the machine.? It may well be a
SCSI controller problem or something on the bus, but I haven't worked much to diagnose
it yet.? I've conversed with others that have had no problems with MicroVAXen and V7.3
so I'm sure it's something in particular to my system. I keep meaning to order a
V6.1 card but haven't tried yet.
My discussion on VCF.org DEC Forum:
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?66437-More-SCSI2D(-V6)-and-OpenVMS-Questions>
You may have problems with a VMS V6.0 system, but 6.1 might be patched to allow it:
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?66311-SCSI2SD-and-VMS-6-0>
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.vms/RAaUpP_XXEw/zKLFo0SArjEJ>
On the other hand, I have a AlphaServer DS10 (OpenVMS V8.4) that works terrifically with
either the V5.1 or V6.02 SCSI2SD cards.
Other VCF Forum threads discussing SCSI2HD:
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?69667-SCSI2SD-on-a-MicroVAX-3100>
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62077-Any-DEC-RSTS-E-experts-out-there>
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?66074-SCSI-to-SD-Instructions&highlight=scsi2sd>
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?52011-Running-RT11-on-11-03-with-Emulex-UC07-and-SCSI2SD>
--
John H. Reinhardt
1:38 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf
Of John H. Reinhardt
Sent: 14 November 2019 00:31
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] SCSI2SD for our vintage HECnet systems?
On 11/13/2019 1:46 PM, Jason Brady wrote:
I have one of the older ones (v5 I think) in a VaxStation 3100 Model 30 because it allows
me to define a 1GB disk which the model 30 needs to boot from
Its running the 7.3 from the Hobbyist program and I have had no problems with it. I also
have one on an IBM Microchannel server.
I did have some issues here and had to tweak some timings to get it to work. However, I
don't think it was the all the fault of the SCSI2SD.
I had some other disks in a RAID array on a separate controller (which I wanted to back
up). Once I put some modern disks in that things settled down
And it all works fine.
Dave
Hello All,
In the interest of keeping our HECnet systems up and running, has anyone had
experience with replacing hard drives with a SCSI2SD device?
This is for an AlphaStation 400 4/233 with 2Gb RZ28E and M drives (Seagate
ST32430N and Quantum), 50-pin connector. Also a DEC 3000 M400 with an
RZ26 1Gb drive.
Are the SCSI2SD units fully compatible and reliable?
Can you recommend a particular model/brand that works well with our
vintage DEC
systems?
If this has been addressed previously, appreciate a pointer to the discussion.
Thank you,
Jason
I've had mixed success, but I think it's just me. I have a MicroVAX 3100 M95
(OpenVMS V7.3) that I tried both a V5.1 and V6.02 SCSI2SD card in and didn't
have much luck. Small amounts of I/O process okay - I could INIT a set of drives
and look at the empty disk, but do a COPY of more than a few files and it would
go into Mount Verification and eventually the SCSI bus locked up and the
system would hang for a long time. Usually I got out by pressing the interrupt
button on the back of the machine. It may well be a SCSI controller problem or
something on the bus, but I haven't worked much to diagnose it yet. I've
conversed with others that have had no problems with MicroVAXen and V7.3 so
I'm sure it's something in particular to my system. I keep meaning to order a
V6.1 card but haven't tried yet.
My discussion on VCF.org DEC Forum:
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?66437-More-SCSI2D(-V6)-and-
OpenVMS-Questions>
You may have problems with a VMS V6.0 system, but 6.1 might be patched to
allow it:
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?66311-SCSI2SD-and-VMS-6-0>
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.vms/RAaUpP_XXEw/zKLFo0
SArjEJ>
On the other hand, I have a AlphaServer DS10 (OpenVMS V8.4) that works
terrifically with either the V5.1 or V6.02 SCSI2SD cards.
Other VCF Forum threads discussing SCSI2HD:
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?69667-SCSI2SD-on-a-MicroVAX-
3100>
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62077-Any-DEC-RSTS-E-experts-
out-there>
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?66074-SCSI-to-SD-
Instructions&highlight=scsi2sd>
<http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?52011-Running-RT11-on-11-03-
with-Emulex-UC07-and-SCSI2SD>
--
John H. Reinhardt
1648
days inactive
1649
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
johnhreinhardt＠thereinhardts.org -
jrbrady65＠gmail.com -
mark＠matlockfamily.com