External SDLT 320 and XW6000

[Winston_7]

I'm trying to get the built-in scsi controller to recognize an external Compaq SDLT 320 tape drive on a HP XW6000. It is running Windows XP and according to device manager, it says that the driver can not be loaded. The internal SCSI drives are on the same SCSI card. Will this cause a problem?

[David Ruska]

From the tape drive compatability matrix:
http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/compatibility/tapebackup/workstations/index.html

The XW6000 / SDLT320 is a combination that is not recommended (and therefore not tested), but you should be able to make it work. Look at the HBAs listed under the zx6000 workstation:
http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/compatibility/tapebackup/workstations/detail/16-0106-0200.html

> The internal SCSI drives are on the same SCSI card. Will this cause a problem?

Although you should be able to get the drive to be recognized (assuming cabling and termination is right), it is NOT recommended to have disks on the same bus as your tape drive. This will prevent the drive from streaming, and cause poor performance and accelerated drive wear.

Use a dedicated HBA for your tape drive.

[Winston_7]

Thanks David,
With that information in mind, I did add a second SCSI card but that did not resolve the problem. With a little bit of digging, I found out that the Compaq SCSI cable (6 foot) that came with a DLT 40/80 tape drive does not work.

Whether it is because of the length or it is not compatible in a non-server environment I'm not sure.

A 3 foot Compaq SCSI cable did the trick, the SDLT is recognized on both SCSI card in the bios and in WindowsXP.

Thanks
Winston

[Marino Meloni_1]

cables are now a days always more criticals with the high speed scsi bus, higher is the speed higher should be the cable quality.
Poor cable will cause lots of unexpected problems even if domain validation was introduced.