Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 21:12:48 -0700 From: David Bear <David.Bear@asu.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: scsi tape curiousity Message-ID: <20030527211248.I18191@asu.edu>
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I have two machine with scsi hard drives and tape units in them. Since these were machine assemble 'on the cheap' they only had a single scsi controller. All scsi Hd's were attached to the same controller as the scsi tape unit. No raid was used in any form. One machine is at FBSD 4.3. It has worked flawlessly for well over 3 years. (it started with linux) The other machine is at FBSD 4.8, recently changed from linux. Now the question is, when I upgraded my second server, I had to change scsi hardware to an adaptec 29160 as my older buslogix/mylex card was not supported under freebsd. I had to go with a wide scsi controller becuase my tape unit is an external device that requires wide scsi. After all the hardware was ready, and FBSD was installed, I went to restore my home directories that were on tape. My tape unit behaved poorly and soon I started to get many strange errors from the kernel. The last message I caught was spec_getpages:(#da/0x20000) I/O read failure (error-6) bp 0xc68321bc vo 0xcd379ec0 after that the system becomes unreadable. I called the cybernetics people (maker of the tape unit) and their recommendation was to put the tape unit on a separate scsi controller from the hard drives. I didn't want to do this since but did anyway. It seems to have fixed the problem. I can now use the tape unit. The question is 1) my first FSBD 4.3 system works perfectly find with a single scsi card and all devices attached to it (though it is a different) model tape unit. Why would my second system barf when set up that way. 2) My tape unit and scsi system had been working under linux for years without a problem. Does FBSD do scsi so differently? 3) is anyone else running a tape unit and hard drives off the same controller? 4) I thought the whole point of scsi was to allow multiple devices intelligently communicate on the same buss. Yet, it seems that is NOT the case with tape units and hard drives -- the guy at cybernetics mentioned their access methods can cause problems. Sorry for the length, but I need a new working paradigm regarding scsi cause it looks like everything I thought was wrong... tia -- David Bear phone: 480-965-8257 fax: 480-965-9189 College of Public Programs/ASU Wilson Hall 232 Tempe, AZ 85287-0803 "Beware the IP portfolio, everyone will be suspect of trespassing"
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