DDS4 on SE Bus

[Torsten. · Accepted solution]

Let me explain it that way:

older servers like your T520 (e.g. T- & K-Class) have several proprietary internal busses. The drivers are made to support IO connected to this busses. The tape2 driver supports native IO (called NIO) on this old systems. Since your drive is connected to the SE-SCSI HBA, the tape2 driver is responsible for your drive. But there was no further development for this kind of HBA for years, so the driver don't know about your DDS4 drive and can't handle it properly. So you have to stay with your C1537A DDS3 drive.

[Jose Antonio Orozco]

Torsten

Thanks a lot for your information.

Is too sad for me and my budget

I will need to buy a new DDS3 and put to work this DDS4 in my windows servers ...

[Michael Lampi]

I see two additional things to check into before replacing the DDS4 with the DDS3, since the ioscans do seem to like the drive enough to claim it.

First, there are quite a few configuration settings possible with the DIP switches on the bottom of the drive. These enable the drive to work on lots of different systems, including old HP systems. Check the manual to see if a different setting would be more appropriate for your T520.

Second, some wide SCSI devices don't work properly in narrow SCSI configurations if the high byte is not properly terminated. Does your 68-50 converter terminate the high byte? The cheaper ones typically don't bother. The problems posed by not having the high byte terminated often don't appear until attempts are made to pump data to/from the drive. Check your console dmesg output to see if any SCSI errors have been logged. If no such messages have been logged, then this is probably not the problem.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

The problem with terminating the hi-order bits in doing a narrow to wide transition is that there may be no device supplying termination power in the configuration since the wide device is the DDS4 tape drive and it is on the far end of the bus. It's very possible that your tape drive is seeing noise on the hi-order bits.

[Jose Antonio Orozco]

I have been looking for info about jumpers and dip switches that help me to change the way HPUX 11 claim the device, without luck.

I will try to put in work in the F/W bus

There i have working an SCSI LVD 36Gb 15KRPMs Seagate disk (is SCSI-160) with a LVD-HVD converter from
http://www.cselex.com/converter-extender-features.htm#6895

Then i will need to use a scsi id higher than 7 (like 12)

thanks for your last msgs ...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

NOrmally bus converters don't "eat" a SCSI ID. You should be able to use any free SCSI ID above or below 7.

[Ralf Loehmann_2]

Hello Jose,

this effort might be all not working.
Torsten is right, the single ended HBA only works with the tape2 driver, the tape2 driver needs to know more about your device to work with it. The stape driver is able to get this information out of the device, but still need patched for it. The tape2 driver not longer supported and does not support DDS4, LTO, DLT 8000, etc. All the newer tape storage is not supported (does not work) and there is also a good reason for it, because the devices are to fast for the old buses. The devices would not be able to work in streaming mode and this means you would have a much higher mechanical wear on the tape drive heads and the media itself.

I do not know what interface the t520 supports, but if it supports the HVD SCSI HSC bus interfaces there might a unsupported workaround. Use a SCSI converter from HVD SCSI to LVD SCSI and connect your device. Than the stape driver should find this device and would work with it and the performance should be also ok. But remember it is unsupported and does not work with the old HP-PA HVD cards. The same does apply for the K-class, see: http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=318658

Hope this help,
Ralf.