SUMMARY: Using SCSI Disks on a Sun 4/280

From: Mark A. Delcher (mark@hobbes.mathsci.denison.edu)
Date: Tue May 19 1992 - 16:13:45 CDT


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>I have a Sun 4/280 that currently has (2) 575MB SMD Fujistu Disk Drives, SCSI >Tape and CD.
>I would like to remove the SMD drives and install (1) 1.3GB External SCSI DIsk >Drive.

>1.) Is there any problem with using SCSI drives on the Sun4/280? Sun says they >never sold this
> machine with SCSI Drives but said if the drive was listed in >/etc/format.dat, it should work.
> I am not sure it is that easy.
>2.) If the answer to question one is no, is there any third party external >drives that will work in
> this configuration

It looks like there should be no problem with using SCSI Disks on the 4/280. Several people
mentioned the performance would suffer as the SCSI controller on the 4/280 is quite slow.
I had never really considered perrformance as I assumed SCSI would be faster than SMD.
The main reason for the switch is that one year of maintenance on the SMD drives will more
than pay for a 1.3GB or 2.0GB disk drive. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Special Thanks:
toense@cplxsys.ncsl.nist.gov
rcd@fed.frb.gov
rnw@math.princeton.edu
sitongia@ozzel.hao.ucar.edu
kwthomas@nsslsun.nssl.uoknor.edu
wallen@cogsci.ucsd.edu
bit!jayl@sun.com
zeke@mpl.ucsd.edu
webber@world.std.com
shj@ultra.com
birger@vest.sdata.no
tom@sees.bangor.ac.uk
jag@otra.com
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>I have a Sun 4/280 that currently has (2) 575MB SMD Fujistu Disk Drives, SCSI >Tape and CD.
>I would like to remove the SMD drives and install (1) 1.3GB External SCSI DIsk >Drive.

>1.) Is there any problem with using SCSI drives on the Sun4/280? Sun says they >never sold this
> machine with SCSI Drives but said if the drive was listed in >/etc/format.dat, it should work.
> I am not sure it is that easy.
>2.) If the answer to question one is no, is there any third party external >drives that will work in this
> configuration?

Thanks in advance

Mark A. Delcher
mark@hobbes.mathsci.denison.edu



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