[H-GEN] Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI controller?

[James Mcpherson]

On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Martin Pool wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Dec 1997, David Jericho wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback.  (Bruce, James?)
> 
Since I haven't seen anything from James Lever, I'll jump in here since
it's actually relevant to me also. Last week I helped finish specifying
the new library webserver (yes, another one) and the beast we decided on
came with a 2940UW as standard. However, usenet at the end of last week
indicated that the 2940UW had problems with bus lockups and other nasty
things, so we decided to try to get a BusLogic board instead. I haven't
heard yet whether we were able to get to the supplier in time, so we 
might end up just buying one from a VAR instead anyway.  

> I read on c.o.l.hardware that the 2940UW works well with the 2.0.32
> kernel: the machine's going to run RH5.0 (thanks gdb) so it should be
> fine.
> > It seems that the current opinion with Linux and SCSI is that the DPT
> > series of caching RAID controllers are best, and you can get them
> > without cache and RAID. James, care to comment on your experiences? 

We actually decided against having a RAID system for our webserver since
we're actually wanting to have _server_ redundancy ;) That will be one
of the projects I get to work on over the summer. I do anticipate, though
that if some other plans come to fruition then we will need RAID (which
level we will need I am not sure of, however). That being the case we
would almost certainly get a DPT controller which you can order from their
website - the RAID1+5 2 channel controller is USD1735, which to me seems
quite cheap.

> 
> The problem is that the machine's coming from GW2000: if their pulldown
> menu contains four controllers you have a choice of four.  If the 2940UW
> was terrible, I suppose we'd go somewhere else, but as it is I think it'll
> go well.

we got quotes from SouthMark Computers (a high-end reseller for IPEX), 
from Digital for a Prioris XL, and for an HP system (all PII based, I think)
the HP was $17000, the Prioris $13000 and the SouthMark $8500. We went with
the SouthMark ;) and we'll actually be buying RH5.0 from NetCraft (or 
Leonard Chan in Sydney). Life will be interesting, especially if the 
RH5.0 cdrom is one of the early batches which have been remarked upon in
colm etc.

cheers,
James

(still waiting for mgmt to meet and arrange my official start as the
Library BOFH ;>)
--
 I do not speak for the University of Queensland or the University Library
J.McPherson at mailbox.uq.edu..au   | this space _not_ for rent. 
j.mcpherson at library.uq.edu..au   | remove erroneous char to reply properly

----------------------- HUMBUG General List --------------------------------
echo "unsubscribe general" | mail majordomo at humbug.org.au # To Unsubscribe