eSATA or ??? for Sun Blade 2500

[Jack Patteeuw]

First I have been "out of the loop" (retired) for 4 years so be gentle.

I'm doing some part time consulting and a Sun Blade 2500 (which are now dirt cheap and plentiful) would be perfect for my client IF I could hang some storage on it. I need > 300GB and of course, this is on a budget (hence the Blade 2500 and not an Ultra 45). Doesn't really matter if it is internal or external.

Is there a "supported" (or should I say preferred or simply one that works) eSATA HBA available for the the 2500 ?

Any other suggestion for cheap storage ?

Thanks

[Richard L. Hamilton]

Post by Jack Patteeuw
First I have been "out of the loop" (retired) for 4
years so be gentle.
I'm doing some part time consulting and a Sun Blade
2500 (which are now dirt cheap and plentiful) would
be perfect for my client IF I could hang some storage
on it. I need > 300GB and of course, this is on a
budget (hence the Blade 2500 and not an Ultra 45).
Doesn't really matter if it is internal or
external.
Is there a "supported" (or should I say preferred or
simply one that works) eSATA HBA available for the
the 2500 ?
Any other suggestion for cheap storage ?
Thanks

I put a LSI SAS-3800X on my Sun Blade 2000, and it works fine.
(I am using it with SAS rather than SATA drives, but it should work with
either. Right now, I have a pair of 1TB drives and a pair of 2TB drives,
all Seagate, in an enhance-tech E8-ML 8 slot JBOD enclosure.)

It's normally a fairly expensive item, but I lucked into one on eBay back then;
I think someone must have bought a 3-pack and only needed 2, or something like that.

[Jack Patteeuw]

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
I put a LSI SAS-3800X on my Sun Blade 2000, and it
works fine.
(I am using it with SAS rather than SATA drives, but
it should work with either.
Right now, I have a pair of 1TB drives and a
pair of 2TB drives, all Seagate, in an enhance-tech
E8-ML 8 slot JBOD enclosure.)

Sound like a good solution, even if it is kind of pricey (watching eBay).

The LSI 3800X is listed as having a PCI-X interface and the Sun Blade 2000/2500 only have PCI (33 and 66 Mhz) slots.

Is PCI-X downward compatible with PCI ?

[Erik Trimble]

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
I put a LSI SAS-3800X on my Sun Blade 2000, and it
works fine.
(I am using it with SAS rather than SATA drives, but
it should work with either.
Right now, I have a pair of 1TB drives and a
pair of 2TB drives, all Seagate, in an enhance-tech
E8-ML 8 slot JBOD enclosure.)

Sound like a good solution, even if it is kind of pricey (watching eBay).
The LSI 3800X is listed as having a PCI-X interface and the Sun Blade 2000/2500 only have PCI (33 and 66 Mhz) slots.
Is PCI-X downward compatible with PCI ?

Yes. PCI-X cards will fit in 3.3V PCI slots, though (of course), they're
restricted to the PCI bandwidth (33Mhz/32-bit). They won't work in the
5V PCI slots, but I'm 99.999% sure that the SB2500 uses the 3.3V PCI
slots (as the 5V ones were obsoleted in the early 2000s).


So far as I know, there are no SATA-only HBAs supported for Sparc. You
need to get a SAS one instead. Pretty much any of the LSI models are my
favorite - the LSI 1068 is cheap and available from various OEMs
(including Sun).

You do need to make sure that the card has the OpenBoot PROM code loaded
in its firmware, NOT the PC BIOS version. Specifically, look at the card
and make sure the seller's docs explicitly say SPARC Solaris, not just
Solaris.

[Jack Patteeuw]

Post by Erik Trimble

Post by Jack Patteeuw
Is PCI-X downward compatible with PCI ?

Yes. PCI-X cards will fit in 3.3V PCI slots, though (of course), they're
restricted to the PCI bandwidth (33Mhz/32-bit). They won't work in the
5V PCI slots, but I'm 99.999% sure that the SB2500 uses the 3.3V PCI
slots (as the 5V ones were obsoleted in the early 2000s).

Further research on PCI - PCI-X compatibility resulted in the following statement. "[u]If it fits in the slot, it should work[/u]"

Post by Erik Trimble
You need to get a SAS one instead. Pretty much any of the LSI models are
my favorite - the LSI 1068 is cheap and available from various OEMs
(including Sun).

What is the Sun part number ?

Post by Erik Trimble
You do need to make sure that the card has the OpenBoot PROM code
loaded in its firmware, NOT the PC BIOS version. Specifically, look at the
card and make sure the seller's docs explicitly say SPARC Solaris,
not just Solaris.

I was planning on booting off of the internal UltraSCSI disk. Is OpenBoot PROM code required if you are not going to boot off of the device ?

[Erik Trimble]

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Erik Trimble

Post by Jack Patteeuw
Is PCI-X downward compatible with PCI ?

Yes. PCI-X cards will fit in 3.3V PCI slots, though (of course), they're
restricted to the PCI bandwidth (33Mhz/32-bit). They won't work in the
5V PCI slots, but I'm 99.999% sure that the SB2500 uses the 3.3V PCI
slots (as the 5V ones were obsoleted in the early 2000s).

Further research on PCI - PCI-X compatibility resulted in the following statement. "[u]If it fits in the slot, it should work[/u]"

Yup. They did the physical design keying Right. :-)

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Erik Trimble
You need to get a SAS one instead. Pretty much any of the LSI models are
my favorite - the LSI 1068 is cheap and available from various OEMs
(including Sun).

What is the Sun part number ?

External-only HBA:

Option SG-XPCI8SAS-E-Z, or mfg part 375-3488

Internal-only HBA:

mfg part 370-7696 (this is hard to find, as it's not available as an
Option)

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Erik Trimble
You do need to make sure that the card has the OpenBoot PROM code
loaded in its firmware, NOT the PC BIOS version. Specifically, look at the
card and make sure the seller's docs explicitly say SPARC Solaris,
not just Solaris.

I was planning on booting off of the internal UltraSCSI disk. Is OpenBoot PROM code required if you are not going to boot off of the device ?

Yup, you still need OpenBoot info just to be recognized as an available
device.

[Richard L. Hamilton]

Post by Richard L. Hamilton

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
I put a LSI SAS-3800X on my Sun Blade 2000, and it
works fine.
(I am using it with SAS rather than SATA drives,

but

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
it should work with either.
Right now, I have a pair of 1TB drives and a
pair of 2TB drives, all Seagate, in an

enhance-tech

Post by Jack Patteeuw

Post by Richard L. Hamilton
E8-ML 8 slot JBOD enclosure.)

Sound like a good solution, even if it is kind of

pricey (watching eBay).

Post by Jack Patteeuw
The LSI 3800X is listed as having a PCI-X interface

and the Sun Blade 2000/2500 only have PCI (33 and 66
Mhz) slots.

Post by Jack Patteeuw
Is PCI-X downward compatible with PCI ?

Yes. PCI-X cards will fit in 3.3V PCI slots, though
(of course), they're
restricted to the PCI bandwidth (33Mhz/32-bit). They
won't work in the
5V PCI slots, but I'm 99.999% sure that the SB2500
uses the 3.3V PCI
slots (as the 5V ones were obsoleted in the early
2000s).

AFAIK, the 33/66MHz slot(s) (1 in the 2000, 3 in the 2500)
are 3.3V, and the 33MHz only slots are 5V. 3.3V cards are
keyed so that they can only fit into 3.3V slots (and not get fried).

I _think_ the LSI 3800x at least will run at 66MHz in a 66MHz
slot. Being PCI-X, it can go up to 133MHz, but it might as well
throttle back to 1/2 (66MHz) rather than 1/4 (33MHz). Not
sure how to check that.

I recall being totally blown away at how fast it was for sequential
access; much faster than the internal FC/AL drives on my 2000,
even though they are10K RPM drives and the SAS drives are only
7200 RPM drives.