Douglas A. Tutty wrote: > I'm wondering how scsi external arrays work in OpenBSD. This is in > relation to my low-MHz box search. Sata drives have too fast a clock > rate so it will be scsi.
Are you speculating, or have you actually tested the results here? A new 300G SATA vs. an old 2G SCSI? You are probably right. Compared to a 36G or 140G SCSI? I'd not be so sure. > I did an eBay search and found Sun and HP arrays, then went and got the > doc pdfs. They all talk about running software on Solaris or > HP-UX/Windws, respectivly, to configure and monitor the arrays. > > How does this work in OpenBSD? Depends on the box. Some boxes have a local controller and the entire box appears as one (or several) disks which may not have anything to do with the individual element drives. Others are just a box with a SCSI bus, and all the drives are visible to the host, and the box does nothing. The "configuring" and "monitoring" in the OS are just the OS's usual OS features. Sun made both types of systems. Make sure you know how to configure the boxes with their own local controller. The "box of disks" ones are pretty easy to configure. :) Not sure how much storage you are after here, but I'm not sure I believe that ten 9G disks are "better" for your quest than one 100G disk. ONE 9G vs. ONE 100G? Maybe (and even then...keep in mind that SATA cables are shielded, PATA and older SCSI cables are not really shielded), but the fact that you need a lot of them and they use more cabling is very possibly going to "add up" on you. Also keep in mind that when you go past about 9G on SCSI drives, many are 160MB/s transfer speeds; even if you attach them to an old controller, the processor on the drive is capable of handling that speed, and didn't slow itself down. Again, years ago, home-grade stuff used to emit less RF than "business" grade stuff. Sun and HP disk chassis never were intended to be in a home. IF you are trying to minimize RF, disk chassis probably aren't want you want. If you are trying to minimize EMF, the higher power consumption of the disk chassis is probably not what you want. And I doubt the extra cables between the chassis and the computer are going to be your friends. Nick.
