Summary: Sun 669Mb Disks under SunOS 4.0.3c

[Peter Elford]

This is a summary of the responses I got to the following questions:

>The price list says that the (Sun) 669 Mb SCSI disk requires SunOS 4.1. I
>know of at least one system (a 4/330) that is using one of these disks
>with (apparently) no problems under 4.0.3. The questions are:
>
>1. Will I have problems trying to connect one of these disks to a
>   SPARCstation ?
>2. Why do you need SunOS 4.1 to support these disks ?

Thanks to those that answered,

Peter Elford,                           	e-mail: P.Elford at aarnet.edu.au
Network Co-ordinator,	 			phone: +61 6 249 3542
Australian Academic Research Network,		fax: +61 6 247 3425
c/o, Computer Services Centre,			post: PO Box 4
Australian National University			      Canberra 2601
Canberra, AUSTRALIA		

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X-From: Gregory Bond <gnb at leo.bby.oz.au>

1. Nope. Not that I have tried it, but by and large a SCSI disk is a SCSI
   disk, provided you can get the right magic for the format.dat file.  The
   toughest bit is getting a cable with those &^&^&@*&% micro connectors.

2. Coz sun won't support it with things like format.dat entries etc until
   4.1.  The hardware doesn't change, nor does anything relevant in the
   software; its just that 4.1 was the next release after they qualified this
   disk for use on suns (and hence Sun h/w support etc etc).

X-From: jfy at orion.cis.ksu.edu (Joseph F. Young)

We have two SPARCstation 1s, running 4.0.3c, which each have a shoebox
containing two Sun 669 Meg disks.  They work fine, without any wierd
incantations having to be done.  However, if you get them pre-configured,
all the filesystems will have to be redone (mkfs), since they come
configured with the 4.1 filesytem structure.

X-From: kevin at Corp.Sun.COM (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})

1. Yes, if you are running 4.0.3c
2. Because we put support for that drive in sd as of 4.1.  There is a
   Consulting Special called CONSULT-SS1TAPE that provides 8mm tape and 669MB
   disk support for 4.0.3c

X-From: raob at mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (richard oxbrow)

Are these CDC Wren VI disks ?, if so then DECR (ecr.mu.oz.au) have 6 of
them running on their network of 61+1 Suns. (they don't have sparc
stations yet). You will probably save a bit of money if you buy them
direct from CDC as well, the uni. bought 10 of them at around >$3500 each
(this is a volume discount)

X-From: bungia!chris

1. Probably not, especially if they are sold by Sun.  There may not be an
   entry for that specific disk in the /etc/format.dat file thus making your
   job of setting up the disk with your system a bit more complicated, but it
   will still be fairly easy and problem free.
2. You don't.  I've plugged all kinds of disks into my Sparcstation 1
   while it was running SunOS 4.0.3c.

X-From: andrew at megadata.mega.oz.au (Andrew McRae)

Our rep said the same thing, but I still got it working OK under 4.0.3,
with no changes. Perhaps the only thing that may influence it is that 4.1
may have different block repair code dealing with the drive, and that you
wouldn't find out about it until an error occurred on the drive.

X-From: genisco!kat at elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Kathryn Fielding)

1. Probably not. We connect all kinds of disks to our systems that aren't
   "supported" by the current release of the OS.
2. Because they probably didn't incorporate the info for the format.dat
   file until then. If you know the parameters and can use an editor, make
   the appropriate changes to the format.dat file on your 4.0.3 machine and
   have at it.