Subject: Re: SATA controller recommendation for sparc64
To: Rafal Boni <rafal@pobox.com>
From: Erik Fair <fair@netbsd.org>
List: port-sparc64
Date: 11/15/2007 15:48:46
That would be the Sun Fire V120 which has one 32-bit PCI slot,  
however, the primary disk subsystem in that 1U server is Ultra2 SCSI  
(80MB/s LVD, with two hot-swap 80-pin SCA ports in the front of the  
box on bus 0, and bus 1 is exposed as a 68-pin "wide" DB SCSI  
connector on the back, suitable for connecting to a Sun StorEdge S1  
disk cabinet or two (also 1U form factor, takes three 3.5-inch LVD  
SCA SCSI disks), not IDE/ATA (though it does have an IDE controller  
for speaking to a laptoy form-factor optical media drive. They come  
with either 550 or 650 MHz UltraSPARC IIe CPUs.

The older Sun Netra T1 model 200 is the same motherboard  
("FlapJack_2"), with a 500 MHz processor. These have been going very  
cheaply (less than $100 USD) on eBay lately, whereas the V120 was  
still going for over USD $300 each when I bought the ones I have.

If you buy either of these used, be sure to get a look at the back  
panel: they came with either AC 100-240 (standard IEC recessed male  
plug) or DC 48-volt power supplies (the latter for use in TelCo  
CO's), and while they can be swapped, I suspect that finding a loose  
AC power supply might be more expensive.

I have a Sun Fire V120 deployed now running NetBSD 3.1_STABLE as of  
early October, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. It hasn't crashed  
while I've been traveling overseas, and that's a huge improvement  
over the Sun SPARCstation 20 that it replaced.

	Erik <fair@netbsd.org>