Subject: Re: Disk size limit...?
To: Andy Ball <ball@cyberspace.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-sun3
Date: 01/31/2001 17:41:17
>> I presently have a Sun 3/80 that I'm using as a caching DNS and NIS
>> server for my home network.  I stuffed a large capacity SCSI drive
>> into it...
> Out of interest, how large a disk can I attach to a Sun 3?  Does it
> vary between models and firmware revisions?

I imagine you could even do one of those washing-machine removable-pack
drives...if you have enough duct tape. :-)

Seriously, though, I haven't found any limit.  Or more precisely, the
limits seem to be OS limits, and NetBSD doesn't seem to have any except
the 2TB limit implicit in using 32-bit block numbers to address
512-byte blocks.

Depending on your ROM rev, accesses to the disk done before NetBSD
takes over may have to be in the first 1G of the disk.  (If the ROMs
always use 6-byte CDBs, they have a 1G limit.)  In practice, this
generally means your boot partition has to be entirely below the 1G
point.  (The rest of the disk, beyond the 1G point, is fine once NetBSD
starts up, because NetBSD is perfectly willing to use 10-byte CDBs when
necessary.)

I don't know what ROM revs on what machines have this limitation.  I've
run into it personally only once, and that was on a SPARC, not a
sun3...but I don't think I've ever used a sun3 in such a way as to risk
running into it; I've always used boot partitions ending below the 1G
point.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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