Many thanks to sun-managers! Most of you managed to spot the deliberate(?)
mistake in the question, and told me what I really should have asked for.
The story is:
1. The board I have is in fact a 753 controller which is a 6U board hidden
inside a 9U carrier. The sockets are on the 6U board and there's enough for
4 SMD connections. I just need an additional "B" cable and a link for the
"A" daisy-chain.
2. SMD disks are NOT SUPPORTED on 6x0 under 4.1.2. You need a "CONSULT-GDS"
patch/driver for which money has to be paid, and for which (my Sun Rep tells
me) there is no support from Sun. I hope it works! Rather disconcertingly,
although several replies stated this S/W exists, none actually admitted having
successfully used it.
3. Some replies suggested that the necessary drivers actually exist in 4.1.2
and I should just try and configure the xd stuff and see what happens. As I'm
going to be shuffling around piles of hardware between chasis as it is, I'm
too nervous of adding further hazard. I'll pay the money, if it's not too much.
4. SMD disks will not be supported (even by paying money for patches) under
Solaris 2.x.
Thanks particularly to John Valdes <valdes@edu.uchicago.geosun> who rendered
a spectacular ASCII diagram of SMD cabling, and to the following
fons@nl.vu.nat
dan@com.bellcore.breeze
justice@ca.nrc.dao
tgsmith@COM.Sun.East.spdev
gls@com.cirrus
mikem@edu.mit.ll
era@EDU.ucar.scd.niwot
neputi@com.mmc.den.inlmutt
valdes@edu.uchicago.geosun Fri
sm@uk.ac.ic.doc
poffen@com.slb.ate.sj
Piete.Brooks@uk.ac.cam.cl
ats@de.gmd.first.prosun
magi@ca.uwo.csd
Jacqueline_True.DlosNSC@com.xerox
vanandel@EDU.ucar.atd.rsf
The original question:
We are about to upgrade a 4/470 to a 670/120 ie two CPU's. We hope to install
an existing Xylogics 7053 SMD controller with three discs on this system. The
670 will also support two SCSI disks on a (slow) SBUS SCSI/Ether interface, and
an MCP board. I know I have to get to 4.1.2 to support the new CPUs, but are
there any other pitfalls?
I'm also bothered by the cabling arrangements for the SMD disks. At present the
7053 has two disks connected. There's just the right number of cables
protruding from the hole in the back of the 7053 VME board to do this, ie one
"A" cable(wide plug) which starts a daisychain, and two "B" cables(narrow
plug), one going directly to each disk. So I need another daisy chain link to
attach the 3rd disk, but how do I attach a 3rd "B" cable. Such rudimentary
docs. I have on SMD state that a "B" cable is needed to go between the
controller and each disk in the chain. Inside the 7053 VME board there's a
smaller board with the actaul cable plug and socketry, but I can't get the
current server powered off to see if there's a spare "B" socket on it. Anyway
life with computers is never as simple as that!
I don't have any docs. on the 7053, but I already have info on how to set up
the SMD address switches on the disks.
Are there any nasty incompatabilities known to exist between versions of SMD
disk, 7053 controller and 670 systems? Software patches? etc?
The disk being added to the 7053 chain is a
<Hitachi DK815-10 cyl 1735 alt 2 hd 15 sec 67>.
The disks currently run off the 7053 are
<CI SABRE 1230 cyl 1633 alt 2 hd 15 sec 83>.
Thanks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Roberston, Head of Systems, Aberdeen University Computing Centre
Tel 0224 273340
E-Mail on JANET : g.robertson@uk.ac.aberdeen
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