2CPU.com » News » August 2002 » Saturday Roundup

Not much going on but here is a little bit of news to hold you over.

Looks like Western Digital is making a few headlines with the announcement their 200GB WD2000BB Drivezilla. Yes more storage for all your umm movie stuff? The official page from Western Digital here. X-bit Labs has a little blurb on it right here.

Keeping with the Western Digital theme the deviants of Deviant PC have a pair of Western Digital 80GB drives that they tested in a RAID 0 array. I would have liked to see some RAID 1 numbers personally. Anyway you can read the review here.

Lastly here is a read on iSCSI from Digit-life. What is iSCSI you ask?

iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) is a TCP/IP-based protocol for establishing and managing connections between IP-based storage devices, hosts and clients.

Want to know more then head on over here.

Vaxcil The Gimp Posts: 21 Joined: 2002-02-11

#17483 Posted on: 08/04/2002 01:47 AM As Per their web site "The only current known support is for Intel chipsets" http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=O6yj1Olg&p_lva=&p_faqid=417&p_created=1027626886&p_sp=cF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTExJnBfY2F0X2x2bDE9NzgmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=

C.A.Shirley Registered User Posts: 1070 Joined: 2001-02-28

#17484 Posted on: 08/04/2002 03:33 AM 200GB WD2000BB? Does is have non-braindead CRC? Probably not. "Chicks dig giant robots!"

rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#17485 Posted on: 08/04/2002 03:38 AM But if the drive uses ATA-100 instead of ATA-133, does that mean that (even on "supported" chipsets), you won't be able to have individual volumes bigger than 137 GB? This doesn't make much sense. I wonder how much Maxtor wanted for the ATA-133 license.. Anyway, if they use some non-standard extension to ATA-100 that only works on Intel chipsets, that probably means you won't be able to connect them to a RAID controller (even ATA-133 controllers). How nice... :rolleyes: RMN ~~~

SP Registered User Posts: 435 Joined: 2000-07-07

#17486 Posted on: 08/04/2002 04:51 AM If I'm not mistaken, isn't support for larger than 137GB a function of 48 bit LBA and not necessarily tied to ATA133? So, you can have 48 bit LBA and support for large drives like this with ATA100 as well. In fact I believe some of the Promise controllers, like the Ultra 100 TX2, support 48 bit LBA.

rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#17487 Posted on: 08/04/2002 05:08 AM Yes, but I don't think 48 bit block addressing is a requirement of ATA-100, so not all ATA-100 controller will have it, and the ones that do may do it in different ways (otherwise why would they say it only works on certain Intel chipsets?). That was one of the reasons behind ATA-133. Have you seen any reviews of this drive yet? I wonder if it'll work on ATA-133 controllers (ex., Promise). RMN ~~~

Chicken is good Registered User Posts: 755 Joined: 2002-04-01

#17488 Posted on: 08/04/2002 05:36 AM Ive always wondered what iscsi is thanks for posting a linky

JEC252 Too much time on my hands Posts: 3701 Joined: 2001-05-23

#17489 Posted on: 08/04/2002 08:47 AM The 48 bit LBA extensions can extend any UDMA controller (33, 66, 100 or 133) to use drives over 137 Gb. With ATA/133, however, 48 bit LBA is a requirement so they all have it, however when WD first started releasing drives over 137 Gb the only chipsets on the market that supported 48 bit LBA (which was co-developed by Maxtor and Intel, I believe [I'm sure about the Intel part]), and so they got the listing. This is much like how my motherboard (the Tyan Tiger 230T) lists validated support only up to a 1 GHz PIII, yet clearly it is a PIII-S board. At the time, the PIII-S hadn't been released. The reason is that simple. As for iSCSI, I don't think it's as general purpose as people would like it to be. I think both FC-AL and iSCSI fit together much like IEEE1394 and USB fit together on modern computers. FC-AL is the more robust high-end interface while iSCSI will buckle under the type of loads some of the big machines (StarCats and SuperDomes and whatnot). On the other hand, for backing up a farm of 1-8 processor machines, mostly Intel, having iSCSI tape would be very cool, or even some iSCSI distributed storage for cetain fail-over applications. Sun knows that iSCSI can't feed a StarCat and so they're not going to roll it out. They want parts interchangability across their entire Fire line of servers (8-way and higher). Once again we've saved civilization as we know it. And the good news is, they're not gonna prosecute!

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2337 Joined: 2000-03-29

#17490 Posted on: 08/04/2002 09:06 AM Promise has released a BIOS for all of their controller cards that breaks the 48bit LBA (or are planning on releasing it?). So even with an ATA66 controller, you could still use a drive over 137gb. At least that is what they are leading people to believe. [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

JEC252 Too much time on my hands Posts: 3701 Joined: 2001-05-23

#17491 Posted on: 08/04/2002 09:13 AM I've got an old generic card that's ATA/33 but Windows 2000 actually updated the BIOS for me (?!?!?!?) as part of a windowsupdate driver update. Got me, but it has 48 bit LBA now. It's a nobody card too, I just had it in for a day or so when I was moving some old data off of old disks and had picked it up for a song as a spare in case something went wrong somewhere and I needed it (I think $1.50 or so). Once again we've saved civilization as we know it. And the good news is, they're not gonna prosecute!

Chicken is good Registered User Posts: 755 Joined: 2002-04-01

#17492 Posted on: 08/04/2002 10:13 AM What is a starcat?

JEC252 Too much time on my hands Posts: 3701 Joined: 2001-05-23

#17493 Posted on: 08/04/2002 06:44 PM A Starcat is a 106 CPUs and 576 Gb of RAM Sun Microsystems server, it replaced the Starfire, the previous top of the line with 64 CPUs and 64 Gb of RAM. The Superdome is the HP answer to the Starfire (came after the Starfire but before the Starcat) and has up to 64 CPUs and 256 Gb of RAM. The Superdome will be available with the Itanium rather soon, as well. Once again we've saved civilization as we know it. And the good news is, they're not gonna prosecute!

Chicken is good Registered User Posts: 755 Joined: 2002-04-01

#17494 Posted on: 08/04/2002 07:18 PM Now this is a pretty dumb question but! Why would you need 106 procs?

C.A.Shirley Registered User Posts: 1070 Joined: 2001-02-28

#17495 Posted on: 08/04/2002 07:29 PM Mondo-Database server, Multiple Virtual Servers, Ginormo-Size Engineering or Scientific codes (like finite element analysis, radiation transport codes, vector analysis, hydrodynamic analysis codes, atomic or molecular simulation codes, and hairy mathematical stuff, like cryptanalysis or signals processing, all of which tend to be problems that are readily parallelizable "Chicks dig giant robots!"

rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#17496 Posted on: 08/04/2002 08:11 PM ...or you just couldn't afford central heating. Back to the drives: if ATA-133 uses the same block addressing method used by those Intel chipsets, then why does WD still say on their site that they only support "certain Intel chipsets"...? Is it just so they don't need to mention Maxtor's ATA-133? Why not just say "you need a chipset capable of addressing more than 137 GB, consult your motherboard manufacturer's site, bla bla bla"...? RMN ~~~

JEC252 Too much time on my hands Posts: 3701 Joined: 2001-05-23

#17497 Posted on: 08/04/2002 08:21 PM It's due to not all intel chipset based motherboards supporting it (e.g. clearly the 430TX and whatnot). Plus, it's enabled via BIOS support for it and not all mobos have that. Once again we've saved civilization as we know it. And the good news is, they're not gonna prosecute!

rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#17498 Posted on: 08/04/2002 10:11 PM Yes, but why aren't Promise (and other ATA-133 chipsets) also mentioned? I'd find it very strange if these drives didn't work on those. Does anyone know for sure if they do or not? RMN ~~~

JEC252 Too much time on my hands Posts: 3701 Joined: 2001-05-23

#17499 Posted on: 08/04/2002 10:48 PM Originally posted by rmn Yes, but why aren't Promise (and other ATA-133 chipsets) also mentioned? I'd find it very strange if these drives didn't work on those. Does anyone know for sure if they do or not? RMN ~~~ They do work, but were not around when WD initially tested its 48 LBA drives and therefore are not listed. Once again we've saved civilization as we know it. And the good news is, they're not gonna prosecute!

SP Registered User Posts: 435 Joined: 2000-07-07

#17500 Posted on: 08/04/2002 11:50 PM I recall hearing somewhere that these drives would actually be shipped bundled with add-in controller cards to ensure compatability much like the way the Maxtor drives were sold bundled with controller cards. I also heard that those cards would likely be promise cards. Anyway, I can't say that's for certain as it was just something I heard, but I expect these drives will likely be compatible with Promise and other controllers that support 48bit LBA.

rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#17501 Posted on: 08/04/2002 11:53 PM Then they really should update their site (ATA-133 has certainly been around since before they started selling the drive). It's a bit confusing to read "the only current known support is for Intel chipsets"... RMN ~~~

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