Re: Sun Blade 100 vs Ultra 60

["Kurt J. Lidl" <lidl%pix.net@localhost>]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 02:57:32PM -0500, Miles Nordin wrote:
> >>>>> "ml" == Michael Lorenz <macallan%netbsd.org@localhost> writes:
> 
>     ml> Bigger disks should Just Work(tm) as long as kernel and loader
>     ml> are within the range that the firmware can see.
> 
> I thought what we're saying is that there's a chipset bug, not just a
> firmware limitation, and the workaround for the chipset bug in NetBSD
> runs big disks in PIO mode, and the workaround in Solaris disables big
> disks.

I don't know about the current OpenSolaris drivers, but the
"uata" driver in Solaris 10 doesn't support LBA48 access on anything,
even chipsets that don't have issues (eg CMD 680).

> And Rafal Boni is saying further that the controller doesn't work well
> at all (``pages and pages of 'wd1d: DMA error writing fsbn X of Y-Z
> (wd1 bn Q; cn R tn T sn U), retrying' and accompanying 'wd1: soft
> error (corrected)' '').
> 
> The X1 and V100 has no PCI slot, so a SATA card is impossible.
> 
> The T1 and V120 do have one 32-bit PCI slot, but they take
> hot-swappable SCA disks, so it's hard to mount a SATA disk in there.

The T1 has an onboard IDE controller, which uses the CMD 646 controller.
Typically used for the CDROM in these machines. But it can be re-tasked
for hard drives as well.

My particular T1 105, has the following: (taken from 'prtconf -p -v')
  subsystem-vendor-id:  00001095
  subsystem-id:  00000646
  revision-id:  00000003
  device-id:  00000646
  vendor-id:  00001095

It's good enough to drive a laptop 120GB drive.  I used a Seagate
"120GB" ST91082 disk drive.  The only hard part is finding the correct
44-pin to 44-pin cable to go from the motherboard headers to the
drive.  I got a 12" cable and that allowed for folding the cable in a
route through the machine similar to that used by the CD drive's
cable.  There's plenty of space under the CDROM drive bay in that
machine to stuff a laptop hard disk in there.

One other problem with mounting a disk in these machines is that
there are no free power connectors for the disk drive.  Using a
laptop disk allows one to use the power available on the extra
pins on the 44-pin connector.

-Kurt