Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 18:30:32 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: john@zyqad.co.uk (John Richards) Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Upgrade to my machine Message-ID: <199508110900.SAA03139@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <9508110800.AA02408@zyqad.co.uk> from "John Richards" at Aug 11, 95 09:00:06 am
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John Richards stands accused of saying: > I'm going to upgrade my home machine, 486DX33 VLB 8MB, 250&210 MB IDE, from > 1.0.5.1R to the 2.0.5R. At the same time I'd like to start migrating the system > to SCSI. This may involve buying a CDROM drive and maybe a SCSI disk. Excellent idea! SCSI disk and more memory will help your performance far more than a faster processor will. > 1. Is it possible to have a mixed IDE & SCSI system? Yes. > 2. Any recommendations on SCSI adapter? Buslogic looking favourite at the > moment on price #155. The BT445S is a great controller. The VLB Adaptec and Ultrastor cards both work well too. _Don't_ whatever you do buy an Adaptec 1522 clone 8) > 3. Will any SCSI CDROM drive work with any SCSI adapter or are certain > combinations better/worse than others? Be careful with SCSI CD-roms; some are barely SCSI-compatible. Make sure you get a reasonably new model. I've had good results with the Matsushita/ Panasonic CR503-B and the Sony CDU55S. Some of the older NEC units have given me serious trouble. > 4. Will any SCSI disk drive work with any SCSI adapter? Essentially, yes. > 5. For 1GB disk would 2*500MB disks be preferable to 1*1GB? Could then > configure 2 swap partitions. Generally, the 1G disk will perform better than a 1/2 price 500M unit, so two disks is false economy. > 6. In a mixed IDE/SCSI system (assumes answer to 1 is yes) can the boot manager > handle booting from the SCSI drive if one of the IDEs is the default boot? You can only boot from the first two disks in the system. IDE disks count first, then SCSI, so you can only boot from a SCSI disk if there's only one IDE. > I'll upgrade the processor at a later date and put in more memory then. I'd put your priorities as disk, memory, processor in that order. > John Richards * email : john@zyqad.co.uk Hope the opinion's some use... -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] My car has "demand start" - Terry Lambert [[
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