From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Dec 29 06:51:38 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id GAA22920 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 29 Dec 1995 06:51:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from croute.com (ishm2.croute.com [199.97.106.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id GAA22914 for ; Fri, 29 Dec 1995 06:51:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from bldg1.croute.com by croute.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02046; Fri, 29 Dec 95 08:59:21 CST Received: from COMPUROUTE/SpoolDir by bldg1.croute.com (Mercury 1.13); Fri, 29 Dec 95 9:15:20 +600 Received: from SpoolDir by COMPUROUTE (Mercury 1.13); Fri, 29 Dec 95 9:14:59 +600 From: "Larry Dolinar" Organization: CompuRoute, Inc. To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 09:14:52 +600 CDT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Recommendations for SCSI card? X-Confirm-Reading-To: "Larry Dolinar" X-Pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk Michael, Michael, if you're going to quote me please quote the whole thing. The comments you attribute to me are actually those of Michel Joly de Lotbiniere; that was the reason for the "begin/end snip". I'll admit the cards may not be the most economical Down Under, but speaking from personal experience, the NCR card cost me $125, the equivalent Adaptec (software/docs/etc) would be closer to $300. Obviously disparities exist, and Adaptec has an overinflated idea of its worth in the States. Perhaps the same is true of NCR in Australia. I'll include the _whole_post_ again for the curious; sorry for the extra bandwidth.... Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 23:48:44 -0400 From: Michel Joly de Lotbiniere Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk X-PMFLAGS: 33554560 Larry, The FutureDomain card you mentioned in your post to questions@freebsd.org is a non-busmastering type SCSI controller; you'll be sacrificing some of the efficiencies of SCSI since I/O transfers will require the attention of the OS, not merely the setting-up & results. People constantly say that the best inexpensive PCI SCSI busmastering cards are those using the NCR 53C810 (or whatever the part number is), but even there, your're best advised to buy an original NCR card: Symbios Logic PCI Host Bus Adapter SYM8150S (with BIOS) or SYM8100S (without BIOS, for MBs with the SDMS bios) NCR Microelectronics is now independant: Symbios Logic 1-800-334-5454 | From: Michael Smith | Subject: Re: Recommendations for SCSI card? | To: LARRYD@bldg1.croute.com (Larry Dolinar) | Date sent: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 12:30:27 +1030 (CST) | Copies to: questions@FreeBSD.ORG | Larry Dolinar stands accused of saying: | > People constantly say that the best inexpensive PCI SCSI busmastering | > cards are those using the NCR 53C810 (or whatever the part number is), | > but even there, your're best advised to buy an original NCR card: | | No you're not! Over here at least they cost a _fortune_ (more than the | Adaptec 2940's), and there's nothing that they do that, say, an ASUS SC200 | doesn't. | To quote the ASUS manual for the P54SP4, P55TP4, and P55TP4XE: "This card works with the SCSI BIOS on the mainboard. Together, they provide a complete PCI Fast SCSI-2 interface." An ASUS card has no BIOS; without motherboard support you'd be stuck with booting off a floppy. Fortunately many motherboards beside ASUS have just such a feature, but that's bit of a stretch to saying they are interchangeable. The 2940 has onboard BIOS, by contrast. best regards, larry