IDE controllers

[Alex Pournelle]

jan at bagend.uucp (Jan Isley) writes:

>jca at pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes:

>>david at talgras.UUCP (David Hoopes) writes:
>>>Hello,
>>>	I have been looking at some of the low end 386sx machines.  I would
>>>like to buy one for working at home.  All of the ones that I have seen have
>>>IDE hard drives.  I have never used IDE controllers or hard drives.  Will
>>>SCO Unix/Xenix run ok on one of these machines?

>>IDE should work just fine.

>It depends on at least 4 variables: the motherboard, controller, drive, and
>version of SCO.  I can tell you from personal experience that there are many
>combinations of these 4 variables that do *not* work together.  Some will.

>I will also point out that in the latest version of Xenix System V/386 that
>we got from SCO *today*, there are no supported IDE devices listed.

I speak from experience...


You would do well to avoid XENIX and IDE drives.  I have a system with
just this configuration--and it will lock up every 6 to 8 hours
unpredictably with the hard-disk access light on.  It is dependent on
the controller, but even more dependent on the hard-disk (which, since
IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics, is the real controller in
these things).  The drive is a Conner CP-3104, the 100Mbyte Conner drive
that Dell and Compaq use at great length; my spies at SCO say this drive
is not completely emulating the WD-1010 and -2020 controllers, the only
two IDE controllers they "officially" support.  (I've never heard of
'em--the only Western Digital controllers I know of in IDE that are
current stock items are the WD-140, -240, and -440; but again, that's
the board that plugs into the computer, not the controller which is on
the drive.)

Note also that Dell, Compaq and Northgate push UNIX on their products
big time, and that same use IDE.  It's not clear to me what *nix they're
using, though.

I have a fix from SCO which I've yet to apply; currently the customer is
running Just Fine with a ST-4096 and a WD-1006.  They'll get their extra
20 megs soon, I just don't know how...

....Short end: if you want to experiment, use IDE.  If you want
stability, use something else.

	Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
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