In brief, I'm having difficulty installing a Sony SDT-S9000 DAT drive
(Firmware 0123) under Digital Unix 4.0c. The drive raises a hard i/o
error when it tries to read tapes that it has written.
I received a number of suggestions, including that I check for all the
common SCSI problems:
a. conflicting scsi id numbers
b. low quality external scsi cables
c. improper termination of the scsi chain
d. failure to rewind the tape before reading it
None are applicable to my situation, but I repeat them for the benefit
of others who may be encountering similar problems.
The most useful reply came from Bill Bennet <bennett_at_mpgars.desys.de>
who detailed the similar problems that he encountered with the Sony
SDT-S9000 drive and the great pains required to get this drive to work
on an SGI or a Sun workstation. If you don't configure the drive
properly it will only write 512-byte blocks (ignoring instructions to
the contrary) and it may improperly swap bytes. This is partially
covered in the "Unix Compatibility Guide" available via Sony's faxback
service (800-883-7669, document #5788).
One counter point came from Ed Bolson <bolson_at_frango.hs.washington.edu>,
who installed his Sony DDS3 on an AlphaStation 500/400 (DU 4.0b)
out-of-the-box without any apparent problems. So in the absence of
further suggestions, I'm going to return the drive and (hopefully)
exchange it for the slightly more expensive HP C5653A, which is
alledged to be fully compatible with Digital Unix.
Given my difficulties with the drive, and the unwillingness of Sony
technical support to help me out, I cannot recommend this tape drive
to anyone with a unix workstation.
Thanks for all the replies,
Eric
P.S. If you can translate the following entry in the cam_devdesc_tab
struct of the /usr/sys/data/cam_data.c file into the new
/etc/ddr.dbase format, please mail me the translation:
{
"Sony SDT-9000", 13, DEV_TZRDAT,
(ALL_DTYPE_SEQUENTIAL<<DTYPE_SHFT)|SZ_RDAT_CLASS,
(struct pt_info *)ccmn_null_sizes,SZ_NO_BLK,(DEC_MAX_REC-1),
&tlz09_dens,NO_MODE_TAB,SZ_NO_FLAGS,
NO_OPT_CMDS,SZ_READY_DEF,SZ_NO_QUE,
DD_REQSNS_VAL|DD_INQ_VAL,
32,64
},
Received on Thu Aug 28 1997 - 05:00:34 NZST