Ok, no laughing, HP-UX 8 Question

[Jeff Barnes_1]

I'm serious...I have a question about HP-UX 8. I need to know if there is a disk size limit with HP-UX 8. Can it handle a 36GB dirve?

btw - Upgrading to a newer OS is not an option.....

Thanks!

[Todd McDaniel_1]

I will try but hpux8 is before my time.

There used to be a PE limitation within a VG based upon the largest disk in the VG. upto 10.x

Not sure if there is an actual disk size limitation for 8x but if I had to guess, I'd bet it would be around 1-2GB

[Deoncia Grayson_1]

try this link it may help answer ur question, but if i had to take an educated guess I would say no, but you can always try and see what happens...

Good Luck
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11558_ca/11558_ca.html

[Patrick Wallek]

First, you've got to remember that HP-UX 8 was pre-LVM.

The drive may work if, 1) it is of the appropriate SCSI variety, and 2) if you can get the appropriate config info for the disk.

I can remember the file where you set up the disk, but you had to set up the tracks / cylinders / etc. for the disk.

I would say that you might be pushing your luck with a 36GB drive on HP-UX 8.

[Todd McDaniel_1]

hehe...

I found this site which might help or might be a bit humorous...

http://www.unixhub.com/

Enjoy!!

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi Jeff,

Even my 9.05 experience is fading but I did work on 8.0. So, I can only try.

You gotta have a corresponding model entry in /etc/disktab to create a filesystem on the 36 GB drive.
You may get it working if you can add an entry for 36GB with the corresponding cylinder, sector, track information. Usually vendor should be able to give you that. I remember to have duplicating the entries of the same sized disks if I don't see a corresponding vendor in that file.

-Sri

[Bill Hassell]

ABsolutely not. The largest disks supported by HP-UX 8 were less than 1Gb, but more importantly, version 8 and earlier used hard partitions defined by a disk table. If your disk was not in the table, you'd have to create an entry which requires knowing something about the physical disk properties (sector size, heads, cylinders, etc). Since upgrading is not an option, it's important to realize that disks manufactured long after version 8 was obsolete are not an option. Current HP-UX has many features from LVM to ioscan that simply did not exist more than 10 years ago. It would be similar to trying to make Windows 3.1 use a 36Gb disk.

So you'll have to search eBay and similar sources for really small disks (1Gb or less).
Just get a couple of dozen disks, locate some additional SCSI controllers and plug away.

[Shane Travis]

Afraid you're wrong on this one, Bill... I'm still RUNNING 8.0 on some project machines, and I've got disks larger than 1.0GB on there.

Here's one example:

juliet 7: uname -a
HP-UX juliet B.08.00 A 9000/380 080009181480
juliet 8: bdf
Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/0s0 1158442 328661 713936 32% /
juliet 9: su
Password:
# diskinfo /dev/rdsk/0s0
SCSI describe of /dev/rdsk/0s0:
vendor: HP
product id: 97560
type: direct access
size: 1355304960 bytes
bytes per sector: 512


The maximum HPUX 8.0 could support was 2 GB drives. (I have stock entries in my /etc/disktab for Micropolis 1.4GB drives put there by HP.)

You can use larger disks than that (I have installed 4 GB drives when I was able to get the specifications for them) but you will only be able to use 2 GB of addressable space.

Jeff, if you find any of these disks (there are lots of HP old-parts resellers on the web that carry these, and other older model SCSI HDs -- all used, of course) contact me directly and I'll get you the disktab entry for it.

If you find a different model, I'll look but I can't promise anything.

[Shane Travis · Accepted solution]

> The maximum HPUX 8.0 could support was 2
> GB drives.
>
> You can use larger disks than that (I have
> installed 4 GB drives...

Two mutually exclusive statements... gg Shane. Let me try this again.

"HPUX 8.0 supported a maximum filesystem size of 2GB. It was possible to use disks larger than that (I myself have installed at least one 4GB drive when I was able to acquire all the necessary technical specifications) but you would be limited to 2GB partitions."

If memory serves (and this was a while ago that I installed the 4GB) I needed it as a boot disk, so I just set it up so I only used 2GB of space and let the rest go to waste. It may be possible, however, if the disk is serving as a pure data disk, that one could use multiple spans and end up with more usable space (broken up into max 2GB chunks). That would be getting pretty fancy for such an archaic O/S, though, and I probably wouldn't recommend it.

[Geoff Wild]

I started on HP-UX 8.05 - seem to remember that to use larger disks > 2GB caused issues...wasn't until I upgraded to 9.05 that I could use bigger disks...

I don't think it's possible to use a 36 GB drive - mainly due to hardware limitations of your box...

Rgds...Geoff

[Gerard Leclercq]

The limit is 2GB for hpux 8.

You can use your 36GB disk, but only the first 2GB, and only if you can get all the hardware parameters for /etc/disktab because this 36GB disk was unknown by hpux 8.

Gerard

[hein coulier]

perhaps you can import the disk on a remote server and nfs-import 2Gb-chunks on your hpux8 box ?

[Jeff Barnes_1]

Thanks for the info so far. We are currently using 9GB drives, or rather the 1st 2Gb of a 9Gb drive. I am now looking at all of the info provided to see if I can build up the files for the 36Gb drives.

The machine does see the drive on boot and can read the prper model number info so maybe I will get loucky :)

Thanks.

[Olivier Masse]

Jeff,

I inherited such an old box once (it was used as a manufacturing robot controller) and ran into the same problem -- no spare parts were easily available. So I did an NFS mount from another server; it was a 10.20 server at the time, but I think even a brand new one or even another OS would work.

It's not as reliable, but if you need more space this might be the easiest solution. But consider upgrading that box soon, you'll run into problems if you don't.

Thanks

[Steve Lewis]

Upgrading the o/s may not be an option now, but you are spending a lot of your salaried time looking into upgrades of obsolete equipment. Someone needs to be told that eventually it will be cheaper to buy a new box (even an A class) that does have a supported o/s and will run a lot quicker, even when you consider the cost of testing. Then again, maybe its a hardware interface reason that you have to stick to 8 and I am barking up the wrong tree.

[Jeff Barnes_1]

Steve you are correct, it is specialized h/w that can only run 8, long story on a legacy product.

Thanks

[Shane Travis]

Jeff, for what it's worth, (almost) anything that will run on HPUX 8 will run equally well on HPUX 9... and the system support tools are a little more humane on 9 (plus you can accommodate larger disks and you've got an early version of lvm). I know this because a long time ago we had to upgrade a large software project from 8 to 9, and the regression testing went off without a hitch.

The real cliff is going from 9 to 10, because then they changed the underlying architecture, location of admin files, etc. That was deemed to be too much trouble (locally) so we stuck with 9 on these projects, which they still run to this day.

Point of the story is that if you're going to be running this system for a while yet, it might be worth your while to procure some installation disks for HPUX 9 (or better yet 9.05) and try a port of your specialized systems to that platform. Should be relatively painless, and it would make long-term system maintenance a lot easier.

Good luck!

[Q4you]

Buy a B180 HP workstation or a K260 on ebay for 250 bucks or so ( you may get it free with just shipping charge)

Add 36 drive on that ( exteral or internal), create 18 LV of 2G each, export. NFS mount on your 8.0 system.

[Jeff Barnes_1]

Shane...thanks, unfortuanly we are stuck on 8 forever (long story) and there is no way to munt drive either.....talk about you rock and a hard place :)

[Shane Travis]

Bummer, man.

As I said, write me directly if there's anything I can do to help. (Hrm, my e-mail doesn't seem to be anywhere on the ITRC; check the reporter here (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=267873) to get it.)

Good luck, Jeff!