Ultra2 LVC SCSI on D230?

[Mark Landin]

I have a dear old D230 system and a nice RAID system I'd like to hook up to it. Problem is: The RAID controllers have Ultra2 LVD SCSI connectors, and the best my D230 can do is FWD SCSI.

Anyway I can get these two to get along? (I'm aware I can probably hook the Ultra2 boxes to an SE SCSI port on the D230, but going from 80Mb/s to 5 will hurt). Are there Ultra2 HBA's for the D230? (I doubt it, but...) Are there Ultra2-FWD converters out there?

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Yes, there are. One that I have used is made by Blackbox Corp.

http://catalog.blackbox.com/BlackBox/Templates/blackbox/mainscreen.asp

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Here's another but I have not used one of these but Paralan is probably cheaper than Blackbox.

http://www.paralan.com/mh16.html#order

[Mark Landin]

The BlackBox ones list for $750 ea. and I would need two! Pretty much out of the question. Hopefully the Paralan one is much cheaper...

[Brian M Rawlings]

You are right, there are no UltraSCSI cards for D-class, and no LVD SCSI available for it in any supported form.

The D-class does use EISA slots, however, and there are no doubt Ultra2 LVD EISA cards out there. I haven't heard of anybody putting them into a D-class system, but...

Naw. Not worth going into. Drivers and so forth would be impossible to get, and worse to deal with if you got them.

Stick with the HVD-to-LVD converters mentioned previously. They seem to work fine. Plus, if you did find an Ultra2 LVD solution for the D230, you'd find that it would probably max out the internal I/O bus to the point that it would run at the same speed as FWD HVD SCSI (20MB/s max, 12-15MB/s sustained).

Have you considered upgrading to an RP2405 1-way? It would absolutely smoke your old D-class box, and is very cheap to acquire, even new. It can run LVD/Ultra SCSI, and makes a great replacement for any D-series unit. Requires 11.00 minimum, though...

Regards, --bmr