Seagate stopped making ST318451LC / replacement not recognised

[Thatcher Furgerson]

I was having a great time placing ST318451LC drives in old Jamaica 4GB shells and had no problems. This gave me 18GB drives at 15000rpm at low cost. I know this is not supported by HP, but --- cost reductions etc. ... gotta do what you gotta do. I am running 11.0 on a K420 with these Jamaicas. The problem is... they stopped making those drives. According to Seagate, the direct replacement is ST318452LC. I ordered a couple of these and HPUX does not see them. I do an ioscan -fnC disk and get nothing where they should be. Is there an entry I can put in /etc/disktab to allow it to be recognised? Is there a way to flash the hardware so it will be recognised? Any other suggested high performance drives of 18GB or more and 15krpm and less than 3.9ms seek time?

[Steven E. Protter]

You really need to pick a drive type certified with the Jamaica box. These units can be pretty picky.

You might want to check and see if you've got the latest code for the Jamaica box. Thats something another owner of your unit might help with, but a good answer would come from Support.

I'd start with the model number of the Jamaica box and see what drives are certified, pick the best of that list. Can't do a lot more without a model number.

Steve

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Jamaica is a JBOD and has no internal firmware. Product numbers are A3311A and A3312A. The difference between these 2 drives is that 451 is U2 drive but 452 is U3 drive. Both are LVD, and I can only guess how did you manage to connect LVD drive to HVD Jamaica box.... maybe you configured it in SE mode (Jamaica is capable working in SE mode)?
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/scsi/st318452lc.html
I see jumper 'force SE mode' on the picture. Maybe this is what do you need?
Eugeny

[Thatcher Furgerson]

My Jamaica is indeed an A3312A. I don't think even the drive that is working (the ST318451LC) is certified in a Jamaica. Where would I find this information?

Eugeny is right that the Jamaica is a JBOD and has no internal firmware (at least in the cabinet but maybe within the drives).

The difference between these 2 drives is that 451 is U2 drive but 452 is U3 drive. -- actually if I read the page correctly, they are both Ultra 160 SCSI.

Both are LVD and are being run in that way. Both have the same jumper settings (none). I have tried 2 differant drives with the same results. I contacted Seagate who say that the 452 is a direct replacement for the 451. I am still thinking the drive will need a firmware flash upgrade, or I will need a disktab entry.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

K420 can not have LVD cards installed simply because they were not developed. So either you using LVD/HVD convertor or running your drives in SE mode. As I already stated please check if drives will work with SE jumper shortened
Eugeny

[Thatcher Furgerson]

I tried putting a jumper on J2 the last 2 (15,16) and had the same results. On the 451 drive, no jumpers are needed and it works.

[Thatcher Furgerson]

On the SCSI where I am using the ST318451LC are other drives like the ST318436LC.

[Thatcher Furgerson]

The case that I used was a A5238A which is for a 9.1GB Differential disk SEAGATE ST39173WC. This disk is now internal (with the adapter) on the K420 and is mirrored to another and is holding the OS.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Some questions, please answer:
1. to which controller installed in K420 (part/product number) did you connect Jamaica box?
2. how is jamaica wired at the back?
3. where old drives are installed and where do you want to install new (in which slots)? Do you want to replace old with new drives or you adding more drives?
4. how did you manage to connect drives to jamaica box? Disks installed should have special plastic casing. Do you use this casing?
Eugeny

[Thatcher Furgerson]

A second to say.. I am using a K360 running 11.11 to test. I have put the 451 drives into a K420 running 11.0 after testing and they are in production running fine.

1. The Jamaica is connected to the core IO card FW Diff SCSI labled (x\0)* on the K360. The Jamaica is/was loaded with A3647A 4.3GB drives. None of them are defined, but all recognised. They have scsi ids 10/0.8.0 - 10/0.15.0.
2. The Jamaica is cabled from the core IO card to the top of the A side. The bottom of the A side is cabled to the top of the B side. The bottom of the B side is terminated.
3. I first placed the drive in the SCSI 14 slot B2 and I also tried B1. I even tried changing the B1 SCSI ID to 1 and tried putting a jumper on the drive to force it to 1.
4. Yes I am placing the disk in the plastic casing and using the converter card that is in there. I am using cases of drives of 4GB or more because the 2GB drive cases do not have the correct converter within them for the larger drives (maybe HVD LVD converter).

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Core IO interface in K-class systems is HVD (high voltage differential). Jamaica is able to work either in FWD/HVD or SE mode. As soon as you connected it to HVD controller and daisy chained A and B busses then whole jamaica is functioning in FWD/HVD mode.
HVD and SE/LVD busses are electically incompatible. You'll never get SE or LVD device working on HVD system, but may damage either LVD or HVD device.
The board inside drive casing, as I remember, is simply adapter between jamaica's connector and disk connector and intended to save disk's circuits in case of hot plug.
From my point of view, this configuration you want to build up WILL NOT ever work because you're trying to connect LVD devices to HVD controller.
If you will connect jamaica to SE interface (addon card in K-class server) and unplug all disks marked 'DF' (differential) then it will work is SE mode with you LVD disks also in SE mode
Eugeny

[Thatcher Furgerson]

I'm tracking with you and am not an expert, but have been experimenting with success in the past. I am researching more, but I do know that I have factory 18GB DF drives (that have ST318436LC drives in them according to ioscan and are working in the same Jamaica cabinet with 18GB drives where I put ST318451LC drives into the case of a 4GB drive (pn A3647A). I have this solution in production and am getting very good IO out of the 451's.
HP supplied DF drives & ioscan results
4GB -- ST34572WC (I have a bunch of these)
4GB -- ST34371W (I have these in jam and int.)
9GB -- ST39173WC (I have 2 of these)
18GB - ST318436LC (I have 4 of these)

Drives that work manufactured by me.
18GB - ST318404LC (I have 1 of these)
18GB - ST318451LC (I have 6 of these and these
are the same drives that
are used in my SC10s on an
FC60)

Drive that did not work
18GB - ST318452LC

[Eugeny Brychkov · Accepted solution]

Thatcher,
looks like you were right but I was wrong. I asked our disk experts and it appeared that 9GB drive modules and larger have LVD/HVD U2 SCSI-2 conversion board inside casing. I was told that all disks certified with Jamaica have 7.2k rpm speed, and it's not good to insert higher speed disk modules because it will lack of cooling.... After this statement I recalled autoraid upgrading procedure, it states "if you insert 10k rpm modules into autoraid, you should change all fans to faster fan modules to supply drives with proper cooling".
I was told that new U3 SCSI-3 drives may require U3 SCSI-3 conversion board and maybe this is a problem why server does not see new drives.
Advice was given to change Jamaica to HVD10 ( http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Home.jsp?locale=en_US&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=33745 ): this enclusure has SCSI-3 LVD drives in it, but externally it has HVD interface (just ideally for your K-server)
Hope now situation got clearer :o)
Eugeny

[Thatcher Furgerson]

I may look into going the HVD route in the future, but back to the original problem. Why does the ST318451LC work and the ST318452LC not. Both are Ultra 160 SCSI according to seagate and the 452 is supposed to be a direct replacement for the 451. The 452 has better stats, but has the same size, speed, and interface as the 451. I'm still thinking some kind of flash/firmware upgrade to the drive might fix it.