HVD Drive problem :(

[Keven Tipping_6]

Greetings to all!

I've got a old HP K-Class K570 sitting around that is in need of some HVD Drives.

I've heard that HP once manufactured a small adapter that was stuck on most of their HVD drives that took a SCA 80 Pin LVD drive (or SE/Ultra 2?- something other then HVD) and converted it to a HVD 68 Pin interface with the Molex Power connector.

Google doesn't reveal anything in particular useful, except reference to a part number:

A3629-67003 9.1GB Low Profile w/Adapter

Presumably thats a 9.1GB Seagate drive with the SCA to Differential adapter.

So my question is this. Where can I obtain this little adapter? I need 4 of them, but HP doesn't list any part number so I'm at a loss, other then having the knowledge that they *do* exist.

I've attached a picture of a Seagate drive with the mystical adapter attached to it. Thats what I'm looking for.

Any information on how I could obtain these adapters or any further information on then would be much appreciated.

Cheers!
Keven Tipping

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Hi,

What is the partno on the adapter?

[Keven Tipping_6]

I'm not really sure...

I don't know anything else about this part other then that it exists...

[Jesse Dougherty · Accepted solution]

there are a few 80-pin to 68-pin FWD adapter floating out there but there is only one kind that works in the K boxes. Unfortunately, you can't buy them anywhere, you can only find them on the actual disk drives made for the HP K class servers.

If you looking for internal disks better than the 9GB drives, the part number your looking for are:

18GB A4909A 18.0GB Fast Wide SCSI-2 hard drive
36GB A5529A 36.0GB Fast Wide SCSI-2 hard drive

Hope this helps

Jesse
Cypress Technology Inc

[Keven Tipping_6]

Hmm. Thats what it looks like :(.

I have another question though- it seems like it will be easier right now to buy a HVD->SE/Ultra Converter, bolt it into the drive bay somewhere, then run that unit with a SE/Ultra bus inside the drive bay for the drives.

I think I've found a source for a SYM20102 Converter unit, which looks like it should work fine.

So, here is my question. Is FWD just "Fast Wide" HVD, in a sense that it is the same thing as "Fast Wide" SE, the only difference being that it is using the HVD signal?

I've heard odd and strange things about the HP FWD SCSI Bus inside the unit, and I just want to make sure this adapter will work. The adapter says it will run at up to 40mb/sec (SCSI Ultra speeds?), so I see no problem there.

My second question is this- will the firmware BOOT off a non-HP drive?

Eventually I plan on ether sticking some non-HP Seagate drives on the other end of the HVD converter, and booting Gentoo HPPA Linux off it. I heard this mentioned somewhere in the forums, but I've yet to read a definate confirmation.

Thanks!
Keven tipping

[Jesse Dougherty]

If your SYM20102 works, let me know, I would be interested because we have tried several with only one success. As far as your questions, I'm not really sure what your asking on the first one but the second one, you can boot HP-UX from a drive that does not have HP firmware.

[Keven Tipping_6]

Hello!

I'm just wondering- what do you mean by only one worked?

Was that a firmware issue, or something else? The boards I think I can get are marked LSI, as far as I know they should be the latest revision of the SYM20102.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't work, since its supposed to be transparent to the HVD host. Were these different machines, different boards, or same machine but different boards?

I'm just wondering because I don't want to get a adapter that won't work, if instead I should save up for an overpriced Paralan or Rancho adapter instead.

[Jesse Dougherty]

The only one that worked for us was the ones that originally came on the HP drives. I really dont know why the other boards didn't work but we just couldn't get them to go. Its probably worth it for you to try the LSI boards before you have to buy the actual drives that are known to work in the K boxes.

If your looking for the 18GB or 36GB drives for the K class, I would just try A4909A and or A5529A on ebay.

Jesse

[Keven Tipping_6]

Well, just a quick note.

I picked up some Quantum 9.1GB SCSI drives (Ultra 2 Wide), and stuck them in the server.

I had to get a custom metal bracket fabricated (no joke) from a local metal shop so I could mount the SYM20102 within the drive bay at the rear of the removable DVD/CD/Drive chassis, specifically since I didn't want to mount it in one of the bays reducing the drives to 3.

All the SCSI drives are on the SE side of things. A single cable (2 connectors only) runs from the SYM20102 to the backplane board.

Differential Termination on the SYM20102 is enabled, as well as the SE Termination. The last SCSI drive is terminated & enabled with termpwr.

The firmware sees the drives as Random Access devices, as fwscsi.3, fwscsi.4, fwscsi.5, and fwscsi.6. Linux boots off the drives no problem with PALO. Linux reports 9123MB Drives, HVD, 20mb/Sec Xfer as SDA, SDB, SDC, and SDD.

HDParms -t /dev/sda shows ~15mb/Sec transfer rate.

No other problems. Each of the 3 adapters I recieved all work fine (tested each one).