Gene, I'd love to help you to buy this server, it's a great system. :) The reason I asked to have the put the validator restriction on the "media bay" drives is because it's really hard to get the SCSI driver load order correct in our factory, and putting drives in the media bay further confuses the issue. It's on my to-do list to fix properly, I just haven't had the time to do it. Consider the problem of "doing the right thing" when you have disks on multiple controllers, and some customers want disks attached to the onboard RAID, some want them on the onboard SCSI, some want them on add-in controllers, some want a mix, etc. It's hard to automate that properly, but easy to do by hand! To get to 500GB, I think you need 2 PowerVault 200S or 201 with 8 36GB disks each, RAID5. You can certainly purchase a PowerEdge 4400 with Linux, and add a PowerVault external disk pod. With the PowerEdge 4400, you can attach the PowerVault to the second channel of the onboard RAID controller. Or, you can add in a different RAID card (PERC2 - quad-channel card, or the PERC2/DC - dual-channel card) and attach the PowerVault(s) to those cards. The configuration should have the O/S installed on the (up to 6 1.6" or 8 1") internal drives attached to the first channel of the onboard RAID controller. Then, install the PowerVaults, and configure those disks as you like them. Either I or Chris Marsh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) will be happy to help you. Let's take further discussions off-list. Thanks, Matt Domsch Dell Enterprise Systems Group Linux Development Team -----Original Message----- From: Gene L Reynolds/GYR/CC01/INEEL/US [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, May 26, 2000 8:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: scsi Hi all, I am trying to purchase a server from DELL Computers. I need about 500gb Raid capacity. Dell thinks I should not purchase this server. I need large drives and I cannot get enough of them in a 6 bay drive enclosure. So I was trying to buy there add on drive enclosure.following is the internal correspondences. Seems there may be a SCSI problem using an external card cage with there controller. Is there anyone who could enlighten me on this, as I really need the server... I do not know the date of this correspondence so Im hoping this has been fixed. thanks in advance all.... Q: I am getting a validator error with the PE4400 with a "Drive Cage" and Linux no matter if I am using a second channel on the raid controller or scsi on the cage. Is there an issue with Linux or Dell mfg or is this bogus? A: The error is due to a restriction placed against Linux and the Cage. The way the Linux OS initializes, it does not recognize the multimedia bay drives. I do not have an updated status on this but as I recall, it was contigent on the next release of Linux. I am calling my development contact now and will update ASAP. -------------------------------------------------- Q: Does this also mean that Linux will not recognize external storage like the PV200s on a seperate raid/scsi channel or is it just the media cage? A: I just spoke to the development engineer and found out that there is a 50/50 chance that the media bay will be recognizable by Linux in the next release which is scheduled for the August / September time frame. Red Hat owns this corrective action and is working it. As far as the external storage, it wll work fine. The issue is with the embedded controller being "split" and Linux can not hack it. A separate controller works fine. --------------------------------------------------- Q: If I am understanding this correctly. The restriction is due to the controller being split. In this paticular The backplane is connected to an add-in Perc3/DC and the cage is connected to scsi controllers. Shouldn't that work if the cage is connected to dual scsi or a single scsi port? A: > Linux will not work with any >configuration that requires drives in the media bay. It has to do with the >way Linux initializes and "polls" the controllers. The way the mother boards are configured with the embedded controllers, Linux errors and will not recover. It is all quite confusing but it is an unfortunate fact that we will have to deal with until it is resolved by Red Hat and the Linux OS. The fact that you have add on controllers really will not make any difference as it is an issue during initialization of the OS. -- To unsubscribe: mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null -- To unsubscribe: mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
