I have managed to add a Syquest EZ-230 drive to our DU 3.2C machine. We
investigated a Jazz, a Zip, and various other Syquest drives. The cost
of a Syquest cartridge is small, and it holds twice as much as a
Zip. The setup was designed to allow individual users to backup and
store their own files, so we wanted to hold down the price of an
individual cartridge. This meant that larger (Jazz, Syjet, etc.) drives
were out of the question.
First, add this to the disktab file:
#Syquest EZ-230 SCSCI Disk
#
# 880 Cylinders
# 16 heads
# 32 sectors/track
#
sy230|Syquest EZ-230 Ext. SCSI:\
:ty=removeable:dt=SCSI:ns#32:nt#16:nc#878:\
:oa#0:pa#449536:ba#512:ba#8192:fa#1024:
#
To mount the disk do the following:
disklabel -r -w /dev/rrz4a
disklabel -r /dev/rrz4a
newfs /dev/rrz4a
fsck -y -o /dev/rrz4a
mount -o sync /dev/rz4a /directoryofyourchoice
The -o sync option means that all reads and writes are performed before
the job is considered finished. That is, the buffer is emptied and the
drive table is updated. This is important in case you forget to unmount
the drive, etc.
All Syquest SCSI drives and cartridges work for both DOS/Windows and
Macintosh machines. Syquest has 2 part #'s which refer to exactly the
same box and cartridge. Syquest cartridges come formatted for Macintosh
format. They provide utilities to re-format them to DOS format, but only if
you have a DOS machine. I didn't bother. BTW - CompUSA doesn't actually
know about the two part #'s, same box bit. They told me they were
out of stock when they actually had 4 drives over in the Macintosh section.
Syquest has a FAX-BAK service which provides disklabel information.
This is the only way you can get the information to construct the above
disklabel, since it isn't listed on the web-page or in their
automatic email-back service. The number is (510) 226-4120. I believe
the FaxBack # you need is 1003. Best thing to do is to ask for the
index of all Fax Back's first (follow the instructions when you call), then
order the correct other #'s.
The Syquest drive allows you to eject a cartridge w/o unmounting the
drive. It is unadviseable to do this however, as if you put a different
cartridge in the drive, the operating system will become confused since
it keeps a record of the drives contents and a few of the last files
copied in a buffer. Therefore, if you put a different cartridge in the
drive, you risk the buffer contaminating the contents of the new
cartridge.
I wrote the following sudo scripts for users to mount and unmount the
drive themselves. They are not very complex, but I think they will get
the job done.
"mountsyquest":
#! /bin/sh
/sbin/umount -v /Syquest
rmdir /Syquest
mkdir /Syquest
/sbin/mount -o sync -v /dev/rz4a /Syquest
chmod a+w /Syquest
chmod a+r /Syquest
echo "Done Mounting the Syquest Drive"
echo "Remember to run ''sudo umountsyquest'' when done!"
#exit
"umountsyquest":
#!/bin/sh
/sbin/umount -v /Syquest || echo "Unmounting Failed, cd out of /Syquest
Directory Tree First!!!!!!"
rmdir /Syquest || "Directory Removal of /Syquest Failed, Re-Run
unmountsyquest!!"
echo "Done"
#exit
Both of these are designed to create a directory and then mount the
drive, and then unmount the drive and delete the directory when done. The
reason I create and then delete the directory is some users became
confused when the directory existed but wasn't mounted on the drive.
Files got copied there which the users thought were on the drive but
were really on the hard disk.
They could probably be better, but I don't have that many users so I just
train them a bit.
To mount the drive, the user runs "sudo mountsqyest"
and to unmount the drive, the user runs "sudo unmountsyquest"
You need to use sudo because Digital UNIX only allows root to mount and
unmount drives.
If any one has a better way, let me know.
Sincerely,
Jerome M. Solberg
solberg_at_me.berkeley.edu
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Berkeley CA
On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, Dimitrios Karamanlidis wrote:
> Hi Everybody:
>
> The question was posted before (early March of this yr) but I could not
> find any summary. So here it is one more time.
> Is it possible to mount on an Alphastation running DU 4.0 either an
> Iomega Zip or a SyQuest Syjet removable scsi disk?
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
> --
> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>
> Dr. Dimitrios Karamanlidis
> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>
>
>
>
Received on Thu Apr 23 1998 - 07:49:20 NZST