Subject: Re: Adaptec AAA-131SA?
To: Current Users <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@most.weird.com>
List: current-users
Date: 04/15/1999 21:40:47
[ On , April 13, 1999 at 12:33:21 (-0600), Chris Jones wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Adaptec AAA-131SA?
>
> I don't know about that, but I'm using an external RAID controller
> made by Adaptec, and I've had good luck with it.  It's an AEC-4412.
> It's got 3 Ultra-Wide interfaces:  One to the host, and two for
> disks.  It has a serial line that you can plug into a port to run
> kermit for a full-screen interface to the controller, or you can tweak
> things using the front-panel LCD display and buttons there.

Adaptec's AEC-4312 is/was an attrocious device -- it worked okay on the
bench, but it was quite slow (much slower than expected), wouldn't
tollerate pulling of an active drive, and couldn't rebuild on-line,
didn't follow the SCSI spec very well, etc.  I've no idea how it differs
from the 4412 -- maybe it's just the additional front-panel LCD
interface.  I never tried it with NetBSD, but even with the latest
FreeBSD CAM stuff at the time it wouldn't handle two simultaneous
checkouts of the source tree without causing the whole system to hang.

If I remember correctly the Adaptec AAA-* RAID controllers are PCI based
and require very custom drivers.  Last I looked (about a year ago) they
were not even supported by Linux.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>