DNES and DPSS

[Benjamin John]

I want to connect three IBM DNES 309170 and three IBM DPSS 309170
harddisks (all LVD/SE) to a IBM ServerRaid 3L RAID controller. The DNES
drives have a 68 pin connector, while the DPSS have a SCA connector and
I use a SCA to 68 pin converter to connect to the RAID controller.

Now I have expirienced some problems

When I use only the DPSS drives (with the converter) I can use them as
expected, I can see all drives, can create a array ...

Then I connected only the DNES drives and no drive to be seen. I tried
some settings and when I set the jumper "force SE" on the drives the
showed up. But I think this is not a good idea.

Last I added the DPSS drives to the jumpered DNES and all where gone.
Even when I set the "force SE" jumpers on the DPSS changes nothing.

Now my questions

1) Is it possible to mix DNES and DPSS drives on one SCSI channel?

2) Which settings are necessary?

3) Are the SCA to 68 converter a problem?

Thanks for help

Regards
Benjamin

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I want to connect three IBM DNES 309170 and three IBM DPSS 309170
harddisks (all LVD/SE) to a IBM ServerRaid 3L RAID controller. The DNES
drives have a 68 pin connector, while the DPSS have a SCA connector and
I use a SCA to 68 pin converter to connect to the RAID controller.

Now I have expirienced some problems

When I use only the DPSS drives (with the converter) I can use them as
expected, I can see all drives, can create a array ...

What mode are they in?

Then I connected only the DNES drives and no drive to be seen.

I tried some settings and when I set the jumper "force SE" on
the drives they showed up. But I think this is not a good idea.

It shouldn't be necessary.

Last I added the DPSS drives to the jumpered DNES and all where gone.
Even when I set the "force SE" jumpers on the DPSS changes nothing.

Now my questions

1) Is it possible to mix DNES and DPSS drives on one SCSI channel?
Absolutely.


2) Which settings are necessary?
None.


3) Are the SCA to 68 converter a problem?

If at all I can't see how it then can't work with all drives in SE mode.

Your problem doesn't compute.
Even if your SCSI controller has a defective diffsens detection and is
constantly in SE mode and the convertors are inadequate and also force
the DPSS in SE mode so you wouldn't know that there is a problem unless
you looked at the SCSI controller reported mode, that would explain why
the DNES would require forcing to SE mode.
But that still doesn't account for all drives disappearing when added together.

Does the same occur when you start with one DNES and one DPSS?
Have you mode sure that no drive ID obscures the SCSI controller ID?

 

[Benjamin John]

What mode are they in?

I don't know where to look in which mode they are. Any idea?

--snip--

If at all I can't see how it then can't work with all drives in SE mode.

Your problem doesn't compute.
Even if your SCSI controller has a defective diffsens detection and is
constantly in SE mode and the convertors are inadequate and also force
the DPSS in SE mode so you wouldn't know that there is a problem unless
you looked at the SCSI controller reported mode, that would explain why
the DNES would require forcing to SE mode.
But that still doesn't account for all drives disappearing when added together.

Does the same occur when you start with one DNES and one DPSS? I will test this.
Have you mode sure that no drive ID obscures the SCSI controller ID?

Yes I did. I tested with the IDs 0 to 5.

And I forgot to mention the SCSI-cable is terminated at the end. The
terminator is explicitly described as LVD compatible.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I don't know where to look in which mode they are. Any idea?

In the bios POST perhaps?

 

[Benjamin John]

In the bios POST perhaps?

--snip--

Hello again,

yesterday evening I tested everything again, drive by drive.
As mentioned I have got a IBM ServeRaid 3L (with PowerCc chip) single
channel RAID controller. The BIOS/firmware is the current offerd by IBM
(BIOS 7.00.14/FW 6.10.24). The SCSI cable is declared to be used with
SCSI devices up to 320 MB/s and it is terminated with an LVD qualified
terminator, according to the imprints on the cable and the terminator.

I attached every drive after the other to the controller. All three DPSS
drives (with the above mentioned SCA to 68pin adapter) work very well.
The controller recognises the drives and I can use them to create
logical drives. All DPSS drives together work very well too.

Now the DNES. I set no jumpers at all except the SCSI-ID. Nothing
happens. The controller get stuck, I have to switch off and on the whole
machine. Next I set the "force SE" jumper and all is fine. the drives
are seen by the controller but I think that's no good idea to force
single ended mode.

Okay, next I connected one DNES (with the jumper set) and one of the
DPSS and no drive to be seen in the controller configuration tool.

So I can use the three DPSS only separate from the DNES. But that's not
what I want. I hoped I can use them all together.

I searched in Google and found that the firmware SA30 leads to some
problems. All the DNES have this firware. Is this the reason???

Regards
Benjamin