usb ports on AlphaServer DS10 and DS15L - tape drive?

[Jim Strehlow]

Can I use the USB ports on an AlphaServer DS10 or DS15L (thin) for a tape drive backup?

Does OpenVMS support an USB tape drive? (If so, is there a DDS4 USB or do we need AME or ATI or ...?)

If not, without a SCSI card on the thin DS15L do I need to install a video/SCSI combo card so that I can connect a tape drive to backup the AlphaServer?

I dislike backing up the disk to a save_set on disk (having to reserve disk space for its own save_set backup), network copy the save_set to another host node (needing to reserve space on the remote host node for another host's backup), then backup on the remote host node.

Thank you for your ideas.

Jim, OpenVMS Systems Manager

[Uwe Zessin]

Jim,
the QuickSpecs for both servers mention only a USB keyboard.

[Ian Miller.]

USB storage devices are not yet supported.
However in the next version of VMS...

[Antoniov.]

USB is hardware working but software unavaiable on VMS.
AFAIK all the software for USB device are designed for wintel architecture so you can't use USB DAT on DS10 or DS15.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Ian Miller.]

I think you need the scsi interface and as you said probably a combo card due to the small number of PCI slots in your alphaserver.
e.g KZPCM-DA network/scsi or DEPVZ-AA net/video/scsi card

[Marco Gariboldi]

As of V8.4, has anything changed with regard to this? (For Integrity.) I've only read about SAS, nothing about USB, so I assume not.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] has anything changed [...]

Probably, but the only supported devices are
probably on the current supported-devices
list.

A trip through SYS$SYSTEM:SYS$CONFIG.DAT
might suggest some possibilities for
disk-like devices (DNDRIVER), but if there's
any support for tape, then I haven't noticed.

> [...] (For Integrity.) [...]

My hardware knowledge is confined mostly to
old junk. Is there modern hardware where an
add-in SCSI card is impossible?

[Marco Gariboldi]

SCSI is fine, it works great. The reason I was wondering is because USB variants of e.g. DAT-320 (DDS-7) tape drives are dramatically cheaper than their SCSI (and SAS) counterparts.