SCSI Question

[obobski]

Ok, so, I have the SCSI cage from a Compaq Proliant server, and the Smart Array card, along with 3 working drives and one drive that I think is dead, but i'm not sure (its light goes orange, the other ones go green...)

So, after some reading and information gathering, I can presume that these drives use SES given that they lack power connetors or jumper pins, I have the cage thingy that they can draw power from (i should say, the circuit board part of the cage thingy, rigged into an ATX PSU, it gives em power, afaik it works fine (providing 5v and 12v, which is all they say they need, and of course grounds)

Alright, so here is the question:

With the Smart Array controller in a computer (I tried it in my AthlonXP system, which has an Abit AN7) it totally messes up Windows and totally messes up Linux (neither Kubuntu 6.06, nor Ubuntu 5.10 would work properly, Ubuntu couldn't even try to install)

So i'm guessing the Smart Array 3200 controller I have is probably screwed up somehow (during boot, when it comes to it's screen, it says PCI Bus Doesn't Support Parity Checking, i'm guessing that's a feature it wanted)

Realizing that a new Ultra-2 controller is only like $35 at newegg, it would make sense to just hook em up to that, and have myself a SCSI array for a hard drive, however, I'm wondering if they'd even work in such a configuration, upon discovering that they use SES (was wondering how they got power from that board...) will this drive support that?

Or should I just trash these drives/turn them into decoration/etc?

Any advice? (also, if anyone knows WHY the Smart Array messes up everything, that'd be nice to know, although i'm guessing it's that it wants parity checking)

 

[mangrove]

Note that this is generalized; I have no actual experience with the Compaq Smart Array cards, although I had one in an old server many years ago, and I never got it to work properly. I see a pattern here... I run different RAID arrays and SCSI cabinet setups etc. at several places, however, so I know a little about this...

So, after some reading and information gathering, I can presume that these drives use SES given that they lack power connetors or jumper pins, I have the cage thingy that they can draw power from (i should say, the circuit board part of the cage thingy, rigged into an ATX PSU, it gives em power, afaik it works fine (providing 5v and 12v, which is all they say they need, and of course grounds)

Using SCA is not the same thing as using SES. The backplane takes care of SCSI adressing. There are adapters to get 68-pin connectivity from 80-pin SCA contacts, but if you got the cage, go with it...

So i'm guessing the Smart Array 3200 controller I have is probably screwed up somehow (during boot, when it comes to it's screen, it says PCI Bus Doesn't Support Parity Checking, i'm guessing that's a feature it wanted)

Sounds like it. Is it a normal 32-bit PCI card? I have no idea what that error message means.

Realizing that a new Ultra-2 controller is only like $35 at newegg, it would make sense to just hook em up to that, and have myself a SCSI array for a hard drive, however, I'm wondering if they'd even work in such a configuration, upon discovering that they use SES (was wondering how they got power from that board...) will this drive support that?

If you connect the backplane to a normal SCSI card you will most probably see three separate drives on your SCSI card. The adapter takes care of all grouping, etc, the backplane and cage is just used for hot-swappability and SCSI ID setting and termination and power. So, you will NOT get a "big disk", you will need to use software RAIDing (meaning RAID0/1) to get any use of your cage as a unit, otherwise it's just a normal SCSI chain. In 90% of the cases, it's not worth it, as SCSI drives are typically quite small.

But it's cool, of course.