Need to borrow a SCSI Controller
Hello everyone, I know many of us like to use and keep older hardware, so I am hoping someone is able to assist me. I need to access some older tapes (Ultrium 2). I found the tape driver for it, and the SCSI cable. Now, I am looking for a SCSI Controller and a Terminator. My plan is to transfer all tapes to a different one that uses a newer tape standard. Would anyone have one or both of these parts, and would be willing to let me borrow them? It'd be much appreciated. Thank you. Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
Hi Alberto I currently have an adaptec or aha 29160 internal/external with the cable and a Terminator this is a 100 MB device but it will run slower stuff as well let me know On Wed., Jan. 11, 2023, 11:26 a.m. Alberto Abrao, <alberto@abrao.net> wrote:
Hello everyone,
I know many of us like to use and keep older hardware, so I am hoping someone is able to assist me.
I need to access some older tapes (Ultrium 2). I found the tape driver for it, and the SCSI cable.
Now, I am looking for a SCSI Controller and a Terminator.
My plan is to transfer all tapes to a different one that uses a newer tape standard.
Would anyone have one or both of these parts, and would be willing to let me borrow them? It'd be much appreciated.
Thank you.
Kind regards, Alberto Abrao _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
On 2023-01-11 Alberto Abrao wrote:
Hello everyone,
I know many of us like to use and keep older hardware, so I am hoping someone is able to assist me.
I need to access some older tapes (Ultrium 2). I found the tape driver for it, and the SCSI cable.
Now, I am looking for a SCSI Controller and a Terminator.
Like Greg said, need more info: 1. What level of SCSI is your drive? And is it wide? 5, 10, 20, 40, 80; fast, fast-wide, lvd, ultra, etc. 2. Is it external or internal? Often the connector on the drive will tell you what you need to know to at least get connected, if not at the optimum speed. I have a few controllers, I can loan you one as long as you don't need one too modern. I probably don't have anything as new as a 29160 (that I'm not currently using) though. I do have lots of cabling and some terminators.
Hello, Thank you Greg, Trevor and Adam for getting back to me. I appreciate it! On 2023-01-12 02:23, Trevor Cordes wrote:
Like Greg said, need more info: 1. What level of SCSI is your drive? And is it wide? 5, 10, 20, 40, 80; fast, fast-wide, lvd, ultra, etc.
I am not very familiar with SCSI, It may be easier for me to just explain what I want to do. Need to retrieve contents from Ultrium 2 tapes. I have on my hands: - IBM TotalStorage Ultrium Tape Drive (3580-L23). https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/overview-ibm-totalstorage-ultrium-tape-dri... - SCSI Cable. One ends seems to connect on the drive, the other one would connect to the card, presumably. - A bunch of Ultrium 2 tapes which contents need to be retrieved from.
2. Is it external or internal? External. Often the connector on the drive will tell you what you need to know to at least get connected, if not at the optimum speed.
There are two connectors. In between them, there's a sticker that says SCSI LVD. Speed would be a nice to have, but if it is slower and I have to wait, that's fine too. My plan is to consolidate the contents of those older tapes on fewer, newer tapes. There's one tape that I would like to retrieve the contents from ASAP, but if it takes longer, so be it.
I have a few controllers, I can loan you one as long as you don't need one too modern. I probably don't have anything as new as a 29160 (that I'm not currently using) though. That would be awesome. I appreciate it. I do have lots of cabling and some terminators.
That is great too. I have *a* cable here, but no idea if that's what I really need. Thank you everyone. Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
On 2023-01-12 Alberto Abrao wrote:
I am not very familiar with SCSI, It may be easier for me to just explain what I want to do.
Haha, welcome to the very simple and carefree world of SCSI.
- IBM TotalStorage Ultrium Tape Drive (3580-L23). https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/overview-ibm-totalstorage-ultrium-tape-dri...
Ultra160 is 68 pin, LVD and wide. It says the tape itself can push 20MB/s, up to 40 if you luck out on compression. So really any lvd fast wide card should run it at max speed.
- SCSI Cable. One ends seems to connect on the drive, the other one would connect to the card, presumably.
Did you check if your cable can connect to external box? And the cable is the same on both sides? Should look like a super-dense connector. You can match it up with pictures online. The IBM spec says they supplied a terminator with the drive. That probably means the drive itself doesn't do optional self-termination (bummer). Is the 2nd connector on the drive case filled with a terminator? I do not have any 68 pin terminators. They are rare. Might be easier to find another external 68 pin SCSI device that can do self-termination and put that on the end of the chain. :-) I have these cards that offer 68-pin external connectors you can borrow. Oh, btw, you'll need a box with PCI. Almost no old-style SCSI cards exist for PCIe, certainly none that people have just kicking around. With external 68-pin: IBM RS/6000 PCI 11H8085 AN011H8083 NCR 53C825 chipset sym53c8xx Tekram DC-390F Symbios Logic 53C875 Those 2 will get you only get you 20MB/s, but that should be fine With only internal 68-pin: Adaptec ASC-29160N PCI (suports 160MB/s) But the internal-only one can be turned into external with: SCSI CABLE internal to external 68 pin; 3 drop internal, 1 drop external on metal slot bracket; int68-int68-int68-ext68 Loving SCSI yet? If the Ultrium drive doesn't need to be kept in mint condition, I often find it's best to crack open the external SCSI case those things are in, take out the bare drive, and plug it into your SCSI setup internally, using your normal PS power for it. Much easier to do internal termination. I have many internal 68 pin cables with terminators built-in or tacked on. If you can't find an external terminator or a device that can self terminate to put on the chain, then your only choice is converting to internal.
I'm 99% sure that particular IBM drive has dip switches on it to enable onboard termination. Whether those are accessible from outside its current case is another question entirely. -Adam Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg> ________________________________ From: Roundtable <roundtable-bounces@muug.ca> on behalf of Trevor Cordes <trevor@tecnopolis.ca> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2023 6:08:38 PM To: Alberto Abrao <alberto@abrao.net> Cc: Continuation of Round Table discussion <roundtable@muug.ca> Subject: Re: [RndTbl] Need to borrow a SCSI Controller On 2023-01-12 Alberto Abrao wrote:
I am not very familiar with SCSI, It may be easier for me to just explain what I want to do.
Haha, welcome to the very simple and carefree world of SCSI.
- IBM TotalStorage Ultrium Tape Drive (3580-L23). https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/overview-ibm-totalstorage-ultrium-tape-dri...
Ultra160 is 68 pin, LVD and wide. It says the tape itself can push 20MB/s, up to 40 if you luck out on compression. So really any lvd fast wide card should run it at max speed.
- SCSI Cable. One ends seems to connect on the drive, the other one would connect to the card, presumably.
Did you check if your cable can connect to external box? And the cable is the same on both sides? Should look like a super-dense connector. You can match it up with pictures online. The IBM spec says they supplied a terminator with the drive. That probably means the drive itself doesn't do optional self-termination (bummer). Is the 2nd connector on the drive case filled with a terminator? I do not have any 68 pin terminators. They are rare. Might be easier to find another external 68 pin SCSI device that can do self-termination and put that on the end of the chain. :-) I have these cards that offer 68-pin external connectors you can borrow. Oh, btw, you'll need a box with PCI. Almost no old-style SCSI cards exist for PCIe, certainly none that people have just kicking around. With external 68-pin: IBM RS/6000 PCI 11H8085 AN011H8083 NCR 53C825 chipset sym53c8xx Tekram DC-390F Symbios Logic 53C875 Those 2 will get you only get you 20MB/s, but that should be fine With only internal 68-pin: Adaptec ASC-29160N PCI (suports 160MB/s) But the internal-only one can be turned into external with: SCSI CABLE internal to external 68 pin; 3 drop internal, 1 drop external on metal slot bracket; int68-int68-int68-ext68 Loving SCSI yet? If the Ultrium drive doesn't need to be kept in mint condition, I often find it's best to crack open the external SCSI case those things are in, take out the bare drive, and plug it into your SCSI setup internally, using your normal PS power for it. Much easier to do internal termination. I have many internal 68 pin cables with terminators built-in or tacked on. If you can't find an external terminator or a device that can self terminate to put on the chain, then your only choice is converting to internal. _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Wow, all this SCSI talk sure sends me down memory lane. So, Trevor, let's add another twist: You didn't mention the distinction between active and passive terminators. (The active ones are superior, and usually have a nice glowing diode/LED indicator when they are functioning properly.) Hartmut On Thu 12 Jan 2023 at 18:08:38 -06:00, Trevor Cordes <trevor@tecnopolis.ca> wrote:
On 2023-01-12 Alberto Abrao wrote:
I am not very familiar with SCSI, It may be easier for me to just explain what I want to do.
Haha, welcome to the very simple and carefree world of SCSI.
- IBM TotalStorage Ultrium Tape Drive (3580-L23). https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/overview-ibm-totalstorage-ultrium-tape-dri...
Ultra160 is 68 pin, LVD and wide. It says the tape itself can push 20MB/s, up to 40 if you luck out on compression. So really any lvd fast wide card should run it at max speed.
- SCSI Cable. One ends seems to connect on the drive, the other one would connect to the card, presumably.
Did you check if your cable can connect to external box? And the cable is the same on both sides? Should look like a super-dense connector. You can match it up with pictures online.
The IBM spec says they supplied a terminator with the drive. That probably means the drive itself doesn't do optional self-termination (bummer). Is the 2nd connector on the drive case filled with a terminator? I do not have any 68 pin terminators. They are rare. Might be easier to find another external 68 pin SCSI device that can do self-termination and put that on the end of the chain. :-)
I have these cards that offer 68-pin external connectors you can borrow. Oh, btw, you'll need a box with PCI. Almost no old-style SCSI cards exist for PCIe, certainly none that people have just kicking around.
With external 68-pin: IBM RS/6000 PCI 11H8085 AN011H8083 NCR 53C825 chipset sym53c8xx Tekram DC-390F Symbios Logic 53C875 Those 2 will get you only get you 20MB/s, but that should be fine
With only internal 68-pin: Adaptec ASC-29160N PCI (suports 160MB/s)
But the internal-only one can be turned into external with: SCSI CABLE internal to external 68 pin; 3 drop internal, 1 drop external on metal slot bracket; int68-int68-int68-ext68
Loving SCSI yet?
If the Ultrium drive doesn't need to be kept in mint condition, I often find it's best to crack open the external SCSI case those things are in, take out the bare drive, and plug it into your SCSI setup internally, using your normal PS power for it. Much easier to do internal termination. I have many internal 68 pin cables with terminators built-in or tacked on.
If you can't find an external terminator or a device that can self terminate to put on the chain, then your only choice is converting to internal.
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On 2023-01-12 18:55, Hartmut W Sager wrote:
Wow, all this SCSI talk sure sends me down memory lane. So, Trevor, let's add another twist: You didn't mention the distinction between active and passive terminators. (The active ones are superior, and usually have a nice glowing diode/LED indicator when they are functioning properly.)
And I thought Master/Slave, and the jumpers involved, the position on the cable, was al that it took... oh well! But the speeeeeeed...!!! Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
Luckily for Alberto, there’s basically no such thing as a passive HD68 or VHCI terminator, so anything he finds that’s physically compatible will also be electrically compatible with Ultra160 signalling. Terminators of all flavours are – amazingly – still easy to get on both Amazon and eBay, and at not-insane prices, too. Oh, and LSI did make the LSi20320IE chip, which is a PCIe Ultra320 HBA controller – I see one on Amazon for only $115?!? The overwhelming majority of Ultra320 and Ultra160 adapters were PCI-X, which means server-class motherboards only; you *usually* have to go down to Ultra-Fast Wide (80MB/sec) before plain PCI could keep up. (PCI was limited to 133MB/sec, you can do the math!) 66MHz PCI (266MB/sec) really only existed in PCI-X anyway, so there you go… A word of warning, if you’re buying a SCSI HBA (card), make sure you do NOT get a RAID card – those are often useless for tape drives. (If I hadn’t done a major purge 3 yrs ago when I moved, I would still have all the bits and pieces needed. Oh well.) -Adam From: Roundtable <roundtable-bounces@muug.ca> On Behalf Of Alberto Abrao Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2023 9:13 PM To: roundtable@muug.ca Subject: Re: [RndTbl] Need to borrow a SCSI Controller On 2023-01-12 18:55, Hartmut W Sager wrote: Wow, all this SCSI talk sure sends me down memory lane. So, Trevor, let's add another twist: You didn't mention the distinction between active and passive terminators. (The active ones are superior, and usually have a nice glowing diode/LED indicator when they are functioning properly.) And I thought Master/Slave, and the jumpers involved, the position on the cable, was al that it took... oh well! But the speeeeeeed...!!! Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
On 2023-01-12 21:41, Adam Thompson wrote:
Luckily for Alberto, there’s basically no such thing as a passive HD68 or VHCI terminator, so anything he finds that’s physically compatible will also be electrically compatible with Ultra160 signalling.
Terminators of all flavours are – amazingly – still easy to get on both Amazon and eBay, and at not-insane prices, too.
My first worry was to buy a bunch of things and something - e.g. the tape drive - is not working. If I can at least hook it all up and see if the tape drive will read the tape in the first place... but at that point, might as well keep going, read all of them, be done with this vintage of tape for good.
Oh, and LSI did make the LSi20320IE chip, which is a PCIe Ultra320 HBA controller – I see one on Amazon for only $115?!? The overwhelming majority of Ultra320 and Ultra160 adapters were PCI-X, which means server-class motherboards only; you **usually** have to go down to Ultra-Fast Wide (80MB/sec) before plain PCI could keep up. (PCI was limited to 133MB/sec, you can do the math!) 66MHz PCI (266MB/sec) really only existed in PCI-X anyway, so there you go…
Ultrium 2 maxing out at 80MB/s means I should be OK with PCI.
A word of warning, if you’re buying a SCSI HBA (card), make sure you do NOT get a RAID card – those are often useless for tape drives.
I am trying my best not to buy anything, not because I am not able to, but because I am hoping that'll be the last time we'll use this particular tape drive, making it pointless. Unless we must, then it is what it is. Still, I appreciate the input, as it may happen that we end up keeping it around for whatever reason. You know what they say about hope, it springs eternal.
(If I hadn’t done a major purge 3 yrs ago when I moved, I would still have all the bits and pieces needed. Oh well.)
If you hadn't done a major purge 3 years ago, no one would be asking for it. More often than not, we keep it around just to *not* need it. That's the only explanation I have for only needing things I've purged *after* the purge... sigh.... ;)
And pray tell, how did you end up with (almost) unreadable media in the first place? I have, throughout my entire computing life, copied all my life's data forward before existing media and drives got near obsolete, right through to the present, with everything from my life now on my current SSD's (and backed up to cloud storage). Hartmut On Thu 12 Jan 2023 at 21:56:52 -06:00, Alberto Abrao <alberto@abrao.net> wrote:
On 2023-01-12 21:41, Adam Thompson wrote:
Luckily for Alberto, there’s basically no such thing as a passive HD68 or VHCI terminator, so anything he finds that’s physically compatible will also be electrically compatible with Ultra160 signalling. Terminators of all flavours are – amazingly – still easy to get on both Amazon and eBay, and at not-insane prices, too. My first worry was to buy a bunch of things and something - e.g. the tape drive - is not working.
If I can at least hook it all up and see if the tape drive will read the tape in the first place... but at that point, might as well keep going, read all of them, be done with this vintage of tape for good.
Oh, and LSI did make the LSi20320IE chip, which is a PCIe Ultra320 HBA controller – I see one on Amazon for only $115?!? The overwhelming majority of Ultra320 and Ultra160 adapters were PCI-X, which means server-class motherboards only; you **usually** have to go down to Ultra-Fast Wide (80MB/sec) before plain PCI could keep up. (PCI was limited to 133MB/sec, you can do the math!) 66MHz PCI (266MB/sec) really only existed in PCI-X anyway, so there you go… Ultrium 2 maxing out at 80MB/s means I should be OK with PCI.
A word of warning, if you’re buying a SCSI HBA (card), make sure you do NOT get a RAID card – those are often useless for tape drives.
I am trying my best not to buy anything, not because I am not able to, but because I am hoping that'll be the last time we'll use this particular tape drive, making it pointless. Unless we must, then it is what it is.
Still, I appreciate the input, as it may happen that we end up keeping it around for whatever reason. You know what they say about hope, it springs eternal.
(If I hadn’t done a major purge 3 yrs ago when I moved, I would still have all the bits and pieces needed. Oh well.) If you hadn't done a major purge 3 years ago, no one would be asking for it. More often than not, we keep it around just to *not* need it. That's the only explanation I have for only needing things I've purged *after* the purge... sigh.... ;)
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Hello again everyone! On 2023-01-12 18:08, Trevor Cordes wrote:
Haha, welcome to the very simple and carefree world of SCSI. Thank you, I guess? :) Ultra160 is 68 pin, LVD and wide. It says the tape itself can push 20MB/s, up to 40 if you luck out on compression. So really any lvd fast wide card should run it at max speed.
Well, it is clearly in no rush whatsoever, eh? These speeds seem to be for Ultrium 1. Drive and tape are Ultrium 2, so that DOUBLES it! I can even feel the breeze on my hair now!
Did you check if your cable can connect to external box?
One of the ends seems to be able to, yes. The other end looks smaller. From my research, the end that goes to the drive may be HD68, and the other smaller end may be VHDCI. I can send some pictures tomorrow, if it helps.
And the cable is the same on both sides?
See above.
Should look like a super-dense connector. You can match it up with pictures online. See above, but, for good measure, I will double check tomorrow. The IBM spec says they supplied a terminator with the drive. That probably means the drive itself doesn't do optional self-termination (bummer). Is the 2nd connector on the drive case filled with a terminator?
Both connectors on the back seem to be bare as far as I can tell. The terminator may be in a box somewhere... or not.
I do not have any 68 pin terminators. They are rare. Boo. I may have to go bin diving tomorrow... :( Might be easier to find another external 68 pin SCSI device that can do self-termination and put that on the end of the chain. :-) Would it? :S I have these cards that offer 68-pin external connectors you can borrow. Oh, btw, you'll need a box with PCI. Almost no old-style SCSI cards exist for PCIe, certainly none that people have just kicking around.
Why, thank you! I have one PCI capable box ready.
With external 68-pin: IBM RS/6000 PCI 11H8085 AN011H8083 NCR 53C825 chipset sym53c8xx Tekram DC-390F Symbios Logic 53C875 Those 2 will get you only get you 20MB/s, but that should be fine
With only internal 68-pin: Adaptec ASC-29160N PCI (suports 160MB/s)
But the internal-only one can be turned into external with: SCSI CABLE internal to external 68 pin; 3 drop internal, 1 drop external on metal slot bracket; int68-int68-int68-ext68
And would you have all parts for that "daisy chaining from hell?"
Loving SCSI yet?
All I remember about SCSI is that it was not for mere mortals. It was *enterprise grade*, thus ungodly expensive, back in my neck of the woods. IDE wasn't as complicated, but it wasn't as high end. Easy for me to say *now* that I didn't miss much, considering the l33t sp33d5 involved, but... I would probably be all over it if I had the opportunity. It's not like we were skimping on performance back in those days... and those *were* l33t sp33d5 indeed.
If the Ultrium drive doesn't need to be kept in mint condition, I often find it's best to crack open the external SCSI case those things are in, take out the bare drive, and plug it into your SCSI setup internally, using your normal PS power for it. Much easier to do internal termination. I have many internal 68 pin cables with terminators built-in or tacked on. Huh...
My plan is to get everything out of the tapes involved and move it to newer ones (LTO-8). I am still checking to see what will be the fate of the drive after I am done, so I may be able to do that.
If you can't find an external terminator or a device that can self terminate to put on the chain, then your only choice is converting to internal.
The bin awaits... Once again, thank you, everyone. Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
Actually, my living hell back then was IDE. SCSI made my life much more pleasant. That stupid IDE master/slave stuff, and using a "suitable" controller from a suitable master (which never worked when you tried to use a CD drive as master), and finding which HD brand had a controller that would work with other slaves, and discovering that Fujitsu HD's didn't co-operate with anything else, etc. Hell, never again! Oh, and IDE itself aside, one nice Fujitsu HD failed when its powerful motor magnets got too close to the steel wall of a tower case. Like, it was still at least 5 cm away! That one took many days to figure out. Hartmut On Thu 12 Jan 2023 at 21:09:34 -06:00, Alberto Abrao <alberto@abrao.net> wrote:
Loving SCSI yet?
All I remember about SCSI is that it was not for mere mortals. It was *enterprise grade*, thus ungodly expensive, back in my neck of the woods.
IDE wasn't as complicated, but it wasn't as high end. Easy for me to say
On 2023-01-12 Alberto Abrao wrote:
From my research, the end that goes to the drive may be HD68, and the other smaller end may be VHDCI.
VHDCI would be a bit weird on that cable at the HBA side (going from memory)?
I can send some pictures tomorrow, if it helps.
Ya, you'll have to do pics, or just come on over one evening and we'll make it work. If you want to wait until after your trip and you're in no big rush, could do it at the next-next board meeting. Adam's note of drive termination may be correct and that will solve that problem if you can crack open the case. My idea of making the thing internal by taking it out of its case is probably the way to go. If you're cracking it open to flip a termination DIP then you might as well just get it all running via internal. Hell, you can probably just have it hanging half out the system ("an internal external!"). You may have trouble putting together the required external cables from MUUG members without ordering something (and waiting...) if you try to make it work all-external.
And would you have all parts for that "daisy chaining from hell?"
Checking checking... nope, not I; so another vote for an internal solution. You can always see all my crap at: https://tecnopolis.ca/forsale/forsalec.html google site:tecnopolis.ca is your friend. On 2023-01-12 Hartmut W Sager wrote:
Wow, all this SCSI talk sure sends me down memory lane. So, Trevor, let's add another twist: You didn't mention the distinction between active and passive terminators.
Ha! I was trying not to make Alberto's head explode. On the bright side, I've never actually seen a situation where the terminator provided (or sitting in one of my boxes) proved inadequate. On 2023-01-13 Adam Thompson wrote:
Oh, and LSI did make the LSi20320IE chip, which is a PCIe Ultra320 HBA controller – I see one on Amazon for only $115?!? The overwhelming majority of Ultra320 and Ultra160 adapters were PCI-X
Ya, avoid the PCI-X if you don't have the slot. 64-bit PCI will work on any board, however!
A word of warning, if you’re buying a SCSI HBA (card), make sure you do NOT get a RAID card – those are often useless for tape drives.
Ya, good point.
(If I hadn’t done a major purge 3 yrs ago when I moved, I would still have all the bits and pieces needed. Oh well.)
Don't worry, much of your stuff is still here, and I'll let Alberto know if he needs to thank you for the loaner part :-)
On 2023-01-13 01:02, Trevor Cordes wrote:
VHDCI would be a bit weird on that cable at the HBA side (going from memory)?
Here: End #1: https://cloud.abrao.net/s/GCHFd9aycJRnncf End #2: https://cloud.abrao.net/s/NgRjBY9S4KYfKHb
Ya, you'll have to do pics, or just come on over one evening and we'll make it work. If you want to wait until after your trip and you're in no big rush, could do it at the next-next board meeting.
My timelines are a lot tighter than that, I am afraid.
Adam's note of drive termination may be correct and that will solve that problem if you can crack open the case. Guess I'll have to, although I am trying to avoid that. My idea of making the thing internal by taking it out of its case is probably the way to go. If you're cracking it open to flip a termination DIP then you might as well just get it all running via internal. Hell, you can probably just have it hanging half out the system ("an internal external!"). If it comes down to that... You may have trouble putting together the required external cables from MUUG members without ordering something (and waiting...) if you try to make it work all-external.
Per my calculations, we would use 2x LTO-8 tapes *at most* to fit the contents of all Ultrium 2 tapes we have They're also on the the lower range of their expected life span (15-30 years, as per Wikipedia).
Checking checking... nope, not I; so another vote for an internal solution.
Greg offered exactly what I'd need to perform this task without messing with the drive, which seems to be working OK - we ran a cleaning tape on it this morning. With that said, I need to get on it fairly soon, so I'll have to get it going one way or the other. I may just go down that path, if needed.
Don't worry, much of your stuff is still here, and I'll let Alberto know if he needs to thank you for the loaner part :-)
To be fair, I should do that already: thank you Greg, Adam, Trevor, and Hartmut, for the input! Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
Once upon a time they made a USB-to-SCSI adaptor and it worked more or less out of the box with Windows and Linux. Sadly there is no such thing anymore so you'd have to find one used. Also, I suspect it wouldn't work with tapes because I think it makes the drive just show up as generic USB storage which means you probably can't send the tape commands to it. John On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 12:40 PM Alberto Abrao <alberto@abrao.net> wrote:
On 2023-01-13 01:02, Trevor Cordes wrote:
VHDCI would be a bit weird on that cable at the HBA side (going from memory)?
Here:
End #1: https://cloud.abrao.net/s/GCHFd9aycJRnncf
End #2: https://cloud.abrao.net/s/NgRjBY9S4KYfKHb
Ya, you'll have to do pics, or just come on over one evening and we'll make it work. If you want to wait until after your trip and you're in no big rush, could do it at the next-next board meeting.
My timelines are a lot tighter than that, I am afraid.
Adam's note of drive termination may be correct and that will solve that problem if you can crack open the case. Guess I'll have to, although I am trying to avoid that. My idea of making the thing internal by taking it out of its case is probably the way to go. If you're cracking it open to flip a termination DIP then you might as well just get it all running via internal. Hell, you can probably just have it hanging half out the system ("an internal external!"). If it comes down to that... You may have trouble putting together the required external cables from MUUG members without ordering something (and waiting...) if you try to make it work all-external.
Per my calculations, we would use 2x LTO-8 tapes *at most* to fit the contents of all Ultrium 2 tapes we have They're also on the the lower range of their expected life span (15-30 years, as per Wikipedia).
Checking checking... nope, not I; so another vote for an internal solution.
Greg offered exactly what I'd need to perform this task without messing with the drive, which seems to be working OK - we ran a cleaning tape on it this morning.
With that said, I need to get on it fairly soon, so I'll have to get it going one way or the other. I may just go down that path, if needed.
Don't worry, much of your stuff is still here, and I'll let Alberto know if he needs to thank you for the loaner part :-)
To be fair, I should do that already: thank you Greg, Adam, Trevor, and Hartmut, for the input!
Kind regards, Alberto Abrao
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-- John Lange
Amazingly, no, there was actually a SCSI over USB transport defined circa the USB 1.x specs. The bigger problem is all those devices will be USB2.0 at best, and typically only came with the DB25 (DE-25 for the pedands int he crowd) plug. Fun fact: did you know that ATA (the hybrid step in between IDE and SATA) is more or less just SCSI-over-IDE? And SATA is pretty darn close to being just SCSI-over-serialized-IDE. Talk about a love/hate relationship... -Adam ________________________________ From: Roundtable <roundtable-bounces@muug.ca> on behalf of John Lange <john@johnlange.ca> Sent: January 13, 2023 2:11 PM To: Continuation of Round Table discussion <roundtable@muug.ca> Subject: Re: [RndTbl] Need to borrow a SCSI Controller Once upon a time they made a USB-to-SCSI adaptor and it worked more or less out of the box with Windows and Linux. Sadly there is no such thing anymore so you'd have to find one used. Also, I suspect it wouldn't work with tapes because I think it makes the drive just show up as generic USB storage which means you probably can't send the tape commands to it. John On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 12:40 PM Alberto Abrao <alberto@abrao.net<mailto:alberto@abrao.net>> wrote: On 2023-01-13 01:02, Trevor Cordes wrote:
VHDCI would be a bit weird on that cable at the HBA side (going from memory)?
Here: End #1: https://cloud.abrao.net/s/GCHFd9aycJRnncf End #2: https://cloud.abrao.net/s/NgRjBY9S4KYfKHb
Ya, you'll have to do pics, or just come on over one evening and we'll make it work. If you want to wait until after your trip and you're in no big rush, could do it at the next-next board meeting.
My timelines are a lot tighter than that, I am afraid.
Adam's note of drive termination may be correct and that will solve that problem if you can crack open the case. Guess I'll have to, although I am trying to avoid that. My idea of making the thing internal by taking it out of its case is probably the way to go. If you're cracking it open to flip a termination DIP then you might as well just get it all running via internal. Hell, you can probably just have it hanging half out the system ("an internal external!"). If it comes down to that... You may have trouble putting together the required external cables from MUUG members without ordering something (and waiting...) if you try to make it work all-external.
Per my calculations, we would use 2x LTO-8 tapes *at most* to fit the contents of all Ultrium 2 tapes we have They're also on the the lower range of their expected life span (15-30 years, as per Wikipedia).
Checking checking... nope, not I; so another vote for an internal solution.
Greg offered exactly what I'd need to perform this task without messing with the drive, which seems to be working OK - we ran a cleaning tape on it this morning. With that said, I need to get on it fairly soon, so I'll have to get it going one way or the other. I may just go down that path, if needed.
Don't worry, much of your stuff is still here, and I'll let Alberto know if he needs to thank you for the loaner part :-)
To be fair, I should do that already: thank you Greg, Adam, Trevor, and Hartmut, for the input! Kind regards, Alberto Abrao _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.ca<mailto:Roundtable@muug.ca> https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable -- John Lange
On Thursday, January 12, 2023 8:16:20 A.M. CST Alberto Abrao wrote:
- IBM TotalStorage Ultrium Tape Drive (3580-L23). https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/overview-ibm-totalstorage-ultrium-tape-dri ve-3580-l23
What the ... I went to that URL and got a BLANK page! Why? I use NoScript to prevent sites from getting ad-shit JavaScript from God Knows Where on the internet. THE BULK OF THE CONTENT CAME FROM A TOTALLY UNKNOWN AND THUS UNTRUSTED SITE CALLED S81C.COM! Why did IBM's idiot webmasters use THAT site for the content instead of IBM.COM, which is the site that, you know, I WAS VISITING?! It's stupid things like this that makes browsing the modern web a nightmare. I HATE having to turn off NoScript and swap out my ad-blocking HOSTS file just because idiot webmasters are too damned lazy to host their own content, or are trying to m o n e t i z e the whole bloody web so they can make a freaking buck instead of supplying information. And the bigger the company, the bigger the crapfest that are their web sites.
On 2023-01-12 Brian Lowe wrote:
It's stupid things like this that makes browsing the modern web a nightmare. I HATE having to turn off NoScript and swap out my ad-blocking HOSTS file just because idiot webmasters are too damned lazy to host their own content, or are trying to m o n e t i z e the whole bloody web so they can make a freaking buck instead of supplying information. And the bigger the company, the bigger the crapfest that are their web sites.
Two words: lazy programmers. Or maybe it's: cheap employers. So many just latch onto framework-de-jour which won't even show a single thing on the page unless you have js on. I too use noscript on everything, though lately it's more of a blacklist than a white-list, as I have all the hardcore tracker sites (and the borg) untrusted, but often do the "set all on page to temp trusted" dance of 1-3 iterations until something becomes useful (which WON'T override the untrusted, thankfully).
participants (7)
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Adam Thompson -
Alberto Abrao -
Brian Lowe -
Greg Manning -
Hartmut W Sager -
John Lange -
Trevor Cordes