Can I have eight hot swap drives in my drive cage?

The next chapter in the saga of getting this Proliant 3000 up and
running is that I have just purchased four 4.3Gb drives to supplement
the four existing drives.

Whilst I understand that I can only have seven drives and the SCSI
adaptor on the same chain, there are obviously eight slots in the
drive cage. Is this for a hot spare?

Also is the SCSI ID of the drive set on the drive or is it somehow
dictated by the slot the drive is inserted into by some cleverness
with the caddy/slot?

Just ROMpaq'd it up to the last available update so at least it
reports a BIOS date in *this* century now. Once I have it up and
running with seven 4.3Gb drives I'll get the OS loaded and haul it
into the loft to take over from the old server. It'll give me a chance
to update the broken ClamAV install on the old server and test some
new anti-spam measures as ASSP doesn't seem to be catching it all
anymore.

I'm still waiting with baited breath for the populated RAM board and
the second processor board, damn the weekend for slowing up the Royal
Mail... :-)

Regards,
Jason.

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Whilst I understand that I can only have seven drives and the SCSI
adaptor on the same chain, there are obviously eight slots in the
drive cage. Is this for a hot spare?

Have you had cause to completely remove the drive cage, yet? If you do
you will see that there are two 68pin connectors on the back...one for
each row of drives. There will possibly be a small board that connects
across both connectors and provides a single 68pin connection. If this
board is in place, you are running in "simplex" mode...and you will
only be able to use 3 drives in the upper row. By removing this little
board, you will be running in "duplex" mode, and you can support all
eight drives.

HOWEVER: to run in duplex mode you will have to have a dual port Array
Controller card (remember the previous discussion when Nutcracker was
urging you to obtain a 3200?) with two seperate cables running from the
card to these two connectors on the back of the cage.

If you only have a single channel card, it is possible to connect the
bottom row of drives to the Array Card (and set up any type of four
drive array that you wish) and connect the top row of drives directly
to the onboard controller on the motherboard. Of course this top row
will not be an array...it will just be four independent drives (E: F:
G: etc.). This will certainly tide you over until you get a second
single channel card or a better (and faster) dual channel card.

Also is the SCSI ID of the drive set on the drive or is it somehow
dictated by the slot the drive is inserted into by some cleverness
with the caddy/slot?

Right you are! The SCSI ID is assigned to the drives by the drive cage.
It's magic!

Jeff

On 14 Aug 2005 16:19:02 -0700, "Jeffrey Alsip"
wrote:

Whilst I understand that I can only have seven drives and the SCSI
adaptor on the same chain, there are obviously eight slots in the
drive cage. Is this for a hot spare?

Have you had cause to completely remove the drive cage, yet? If you do
you will see that there are two 68pin connectors on the back...one for
each row of drives. There will possibly be a small board that connects
across both connectors and provides a single 68pin connection. If this
board is in place, you are running in "simplex" mode...and you will
only be able to use 3 drives in the upper row. By removing this little
board, you will be running in "duplex" mode, and you can support all
eight drives.

HOWEVER: to run in duplex mode you will have to have a dual port Array
Controller card (remember the previous discussion when Nutcracker was
urging you to obtain a 3200?) with two seperate cables running from the
card to these two connectors on the back of the cage.

If you only have a single channel card, it is possible to connect the
bottom row of drives to the Array Card (and set up any type of four
drive array that you wish) and connect the top row of drives directly
to the onboard controller on the motherboard. Of course this top row
will not be an array...it will just be four independent drives (E: F:
G: etc.). This will certainly tide you over until you get a second
single channel card or a better (and faster) dual channel card.

Also is the SCSI ID of the drive set on the drive or is it somehow
dictated by the slot the drive is inserted into by some cleverness
with the caddy/slot?

Right you are! The SCSI ID is assigned to the drives by the drive cage.
It's magic!

Jeff

Thanks for that I had spotted the board bridging the connections at
the back of the cage, as I only currently have a single channel
Smart2SL card so it'll be a seven drive array for the time being.

Just picked up four 4.3Gb drives for 99p/each so I'll have seven
drives and a 'cold' spare.

My goodie bag arrived this morning with a fully populated RAM board,
another terminator card and a processor card with a 333MHz PII already
installed! Having tinkered with the dip switches I now have a PII
333MHz machine and the extra 8x 32Mb EDO DIMMs mean I now have a more
respectable 384Mb of memory to play with.

Since the guy who supplied the machine seems to have given me a faulty
CD-ROM drive I persuaded him to find me another 333MHz processor in
lieu of replacing the CD-ROM drive, so all being well I should have a
dual PII 333MHz in the near future and I can upgrade the RAM as the
256Mb module appear on eBay...

Excellent!

Regards,
Jason.
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