From owner-freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 24 10:08:47 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A12AC37B401 for ; Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:08:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [207.200.153.226]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C97F43FE5 for ; Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:08:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tom@sdf.com) Received: from tom (helo=localhost) by misery.sdf.com with local-esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 198idZ-0004A1-00; Thu, 24 Apr 2003 08:27:49 -0700 Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 08:27:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom Samplonius To: "Marc G. Fournier" In-Reply-To: <20030424103948.C8838@hub.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Debugging SCSI ... why so hard? X-BeenThere: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: SCSI subsystem List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 17:08:47 -0000 On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > I'm just curious about this ... with how 'intelligent' SCSI is (isn't > it?), and with the newer standards, why is it so difficult to isolate > issues with SCSI? For instance, cabling problems ... isn't there any way > of detecting, based on signal (strength or something) whether there is a > termination problem? There is just so much involved with SCSI. Unlike, IDE/ATA, SCSI can be used to connect more than two devices, so it requires termination. Plus, so the SCSI bus is longer and has more connectors, each of which can induce problems. I've never had any problems that weren't caused by using sub-standard components. And when things aren't right, you get lots and lots of erros! Even with four drives on a bus, using a process of elimination, it doesn't take long to figure out what is wrong. SCSI backplanes really are the way to go, though. There is just a single cable between the SCSI controllor and the backplane, and the backplane has a built-in terminator. And the drives connect directly to the backplane, and their SCSI id is set by their position in the backplane. Tom