Subject: Re: Another changer, another changer problem
To: Gandhi woulda smacked you <greywolf@starwolf.com>
From: John F. Woods <jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com>
List: current-users
Date: 10/01/1998 16:03:23
> Uh, actually, when I said SCSI controller, I didn't mean the SCSI bus
> (esp0), I meant the controller as in the card that drives the disk
> drive. Currently, most, if not all, manufacturers ship disks that have a
> one-to-one disk-to-controller mapping; I'd like it if there were some
> that at least could split 2 disks (LUNs) for one controller (Target).

I used to have some SASI controllers which would operate a floppy drive,
a tape drive, and two (count 'em, two) MFM disk drives, giving each its own
LUN.  However, the modern market for disks without controller hardware would
be vanishingly small; about the only potential use would be for a huge disk
farm, and someone doing a huge disk farm is likely to be able to afford
multiple SCSI busses anyway (and very likely to *prefer* multiple SCSI
busses).  (I suppose that you could have a SCSI disk with a controller and
an additional port that you could plug in a cable from *another* disk to
have the two disks share a single target controller, however, not only would
the market be vanishingly small (again), but the added complexity would drive
the cost way up (and it wouldn't be easily scalable beyond pairs of disks...).
(And the hardware design makes me shudder...  but then again, most hardware
design makes me shudder.)