From owner-freebsd-scsi Tue Nov 28 22:40:31 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [204.244.213.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 563DD37B400 for ; Tue, 28 Nov 2000 22:40:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from tom (helo=localhost) by misery.sdf.com with local-esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 1410Ep-0001KV-00; Tue, 28 Nov 2000 21:57:03 -0800 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 21:56:53 -0800 (PST) From: Tom Samplonius To: fbscsi@ildm.com Cc: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SCSI Canisters In-Reply-To: <20001128145946.A80230@demon.ildm.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 28 Nov 2000 fbscsi@ildm.com wrote: > Hello all, > > I'm just curious... Is there a consensus on a good manufacturer for scsi > canisters? Specifically, ones that work well with U2W LVD and U160? > > Thanks. > > --Brennon Church Canisters? I guess you mean hot swap bays? Personally, I've sworn off those individual hotswap bays. They introduce so many connections, and so many opportunities for problems. I really don't know if it is possible to maintain U2 or U160 quality cabling first from a ribbon cable to the outside of the bay, then through the stub cable inside the cartridge to the drive. I always go for backplane type solutions that use SCA connector drives that plug right into a backplane. You only need one cable and one connector to connect the backplane to the controller. Many servers (Dell, IBM, etc) have SCSI backplanes standard in their servers. The Dell PowerEdge 4200 is nice (6 hotswap bays on a backplane). So is the IBM Netfinity 4500R/x340 (3 stock hotswap bays on a backplane, another backplane with another three drives can be added). You can get internal enclosures that use the backplanes too. I like the DPT RAIDStation 7. DPT doesn't actually make them, they just put their name on them. They are the same enclosures that NetApp uses for their storage servers. They have a SCSI (U2/U160) backplane, have redundant power and fans. Plus they are SAF-TE compliant, so drive, power, temparature, and fan status is available to your controller. With many RAID controllers, this makes drive replacements automatic, as SAF-TE enclosures allow the controller to detect drive insertion properly. Tom To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message