Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!fcom.cc.utah.edu!npd.novell.com!newsun!keith From: keith@ca.excelan.com (Keith Brown) Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell Subject: Re: SystemPro installation question Keywords: Disk driver? Message-ID: <1991Apr30.205422.21606@novell.com> Date: 8 May 91 06:02:26 GMT Sender: news@novell.com ( Lines: 54 The News Manager) Nntp-Posting-Host: ca Reply-To: keith@ca.excelan.com (Keith Brown) Organization: Novell, Inc. San Jose, California References: <1991Apr30.010858.1101@spool.cs.wisc.edu> Distribution: na Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1991 20:54:22 GMT In article <1991Apr30.010858.1101@spool.cs.wisc.edu> mark@shorty.cs.wisc.edu (Mark Spankus) writes: > I want to move our Netware 3.1 server software to a Compaq SystemPro >that has an 800Mb drive and 16 Megs of Ram. Hey... thats my servers configuration! At last.... someone I might be able to actually help :-) > I will be using an Etherlink 507 >network card, with the drivers that came from 3Com. Well, thats blown it! I use an NE3200 but anyway....... >But what I need to know >is do I need a special hard disk driver to support the SystemPro's hard disk, >and if so where can these drivers be found? Otherwise I should be able to >use one of the standard drivers that Novell provides, right? > The SystemPro's disk subsystem is rather special. Compaq have this gadget called an Intelligent Drive Array (IDA) which uses all kinds of tricks to get at data on the drives faster than your average controller. Its even capable of handling disk mirroring without the help of NetWare (they can mirror the disks at the controller level, in the firmware). I'm particularly fond of its "Data Guarding" feature which, given a 4 drive 800 Mbyte array, allows you to guard against a failure in any single drive at the cost of only 1/4 of your disk space (obviously mirroring "costs" you 1/2 your disk space). It does it by keeping data on 3 of the 4 drives and using the 4th drive for checksumming/guarding information. If any drive is lost, the original data can be "rebuilt" using information on the remaining 3. Obviously Compaq hired somebody with a maths degree :-) The drawback to all this is that if a drive fails the system will go down, unlike with NetWare's mirroring and duplexing features where the server will stay running. Such is life.... Anyway, this controller does have a default mode where it is compatible with your humble IBM AT disk controller and hence ISADISK.DSK will drive it. To improve performance though, you should use a special disk driver supplied by Compaq which uses the controller to its max. This driver is called CPQDA386.DSK and the most recent version I have is v2.0 (900817). If you are unable to find this driver on the diskettes that came with the machine, call one Shannon Clyde on 713 378 8035. Compaq have also written a few NLMs that give you all kinds of stats on disk usage etc.... Keith - Keith Brown Phone: (408) 473 8308 Novell San Jose Development Centre Fax: (408) 433 0775 2180 Fortune Dr, San Jose, California 95131 Net: keith@novell.COM