🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4a6kan$acj@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> Steven Glenister <steveg@tyrell.co.uk> writes:
>Does anyone know of an SSA scsi card for a mac ? Does anuone have any
>experiences with the card ? If I could get a pci SSA card, is it
>likley to run on my mac without any major problems ?

Pathlight Technologies (767 Warren Road Ithaca NY 14850-1225 508.486.0005
email maybe sales@pathlight.com) makes an outstanding SSA controller
for PCI systems, and just released a beta version of their Mac OS 
driver.  I don't know how the evaluation is going, but everything
else Pathlight does is pretty clean, so I suspect this will be as
well.  I'm providing the SSA drive enclosure for a major Mac 
account who is evaluating the Pathlight beta driver, and if all
goes well I'll post the results here.


-- 
Gary M. Watson                              
Electronic Engineer                         Internet: trimm@netcom.com
Sigma-Trimm Technologies, A Division of Robroy Industries
350 Pilot Road   
Las Vegas, NV 89119                         Phone: (800) 423-2024 x2115 
** Enclosures for SCSI, RAID, Fibre Channel, and SSA **

In article <trimmDJ8BDC.4w8@netcom.com>, trimm@netcom.com (Trimm
Industries) wrote:

> In article <4a6kan$acj@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> Steven Glenister
<steveg@tyrell.co.uk> writes:
> >Does anyone know of an SSA scsi card for a mac ? Does anuone have any
> >experiences with the card ? If I could get a pci SSA card, is it
> >likley to run on my mac without any major problems ?
> 
> Pathlight Technologies (767 Warren Road Ithaca NY 14850-1225 508.486.0005
> email maybe sales@pathlight.com) makes an outstanding SSA controller
> for PCI systems, and just released a beta version of their Mac OS 
> driver.  I don't know how the evaluation is going, but everything
> else Pathlight does is pretty clean, so I suspect this will be as
> well.  I'm providing the SSA drive enclosure for a major Mac 
> account who is evaluating the Pathlight beta driver, and if all
> goes well I'll post the results here.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Gary M. Watson                              
> Electronic Engineer                         Internet: trimm@netcom.com
> Sigma-Trimm Technologies, A Division of Robroy Industries
> 350 Pilot Road   
> Las Vegas, NV 89119                         Phone: (800) 423-2024 x2115 
> ** Enclosures for SCSI, RAID, Fibre Channel, and SSA **

Wow... what is the pricing going to look like, do you know? Are any SSA
drives coming out soon? Wow. Looking to finally get rid of SCSI. (Though
Fibre Channel is what really looks exciting)

-- 
                 -- Noah Daniels
            {ndaniel1@cc.swarthmore.edu}
      "You see things and say 'Why?'; but I dream
 things that never were and I say 'Why not?'" --G.B. Shaw

In article <ndaniel1-0812950808090001@mac63.hallowell2.swarthmore.edu> ndaniel1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Noah Daniels) writes:
>In article <trimmDJ8BDC.4w8@netcom.com>, trimm@netcom.com (Trimm
>Industries) wrote:
>
>> In article <4a6kan$acj@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> Steven Glenister
><steveg@tyrell.co.uk> writes:
>> >Does anyone know of an SSA scsi card for a mac ? Does anuone have any
>> >experiences with the card ? If I could get a pci SSA card, is it
>> >likley to run on my mac without any major problems ?
>> 
>> Pathlight Technologies (767 Warren Road Ithaca NY 14850-1225 508.486.0005
>> email maybe sales@pathlight.com) makes an outstanding SSA controller
>> for PCI systems, and just released a beta version of their Mac OS 
>> driver.  I don't know how the evaluation is going, but everything
>> else Pathlight does is pretty clean, so I suspect this will be as
>> well.  I'm providing the SSA drive enclosure for a major Mac 
>> account who is evaluating the Pathlight beta driver, and if all
>> goes well I'll post the results here.
>
>Wow... what is the pricing going to look like, do you know? Are any SSA
>drives coming out soon? Wow. Looking to finally get rid of SCSI. (Though
>Fibre Channel is what really looks exciting)
>
SSA drives are floating around $0.25 per megabyte (about the same
as parallel SCSI).  The host adaptor lists for about $1400 but should
be comming down.  Our 5-drive SSA box is about $700 list price I
think.  The cables are about $25 for a 6 foot cable (you need two,
one for each side of the loop).

Fibre Channel is not really shipping production yet.  The FC drives
from Seagate are priced as experimental devices, but figure $0.30/MB
within a few months.  FC host adaptors are around $3500 but should
be below $2000 in 1Q96 and below $1000 in 3Q96.  Our 8 drive FC
rack I think sells for $3000 or so in OEM quantities.

The SSA and FC host adaptors sound expensive until you realize that
they control about 125 drives, and have two completely redundant
interfaces on them.  Not to mention the fact that while a SCSI f/w
adaptor is lucky to get 18 MB/s, SSA can achieve 80 MB/s in a 
large disk array, and FC can achieve 200 MB/s in a large array.
Transaction rates are faster and cache-hit impact is more significant
because you lose the inherent 1ms or so overhead of parallel SCSI.


-- 
Gary M. Watson                              
Electronic Engineer                         Internet: trimm@netcom.com
Sigma-Trimm Technologies, A Division of Robroy Industries
350 Pilot Road   
Las Vegas, NV 89119                         Phone: (800) 423-2024 x2115 
** Enclosures for SCSI, RAID, Fibre Channel, and SSA **

In <ndaniel1-0812950808090001@mac63.hallowell2.swarthmore.edu>, ndaniel1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Noah Daniels) writes:
>Wow... what is the pricing going to look like, do you know? Are any SSA
>drives coming out soon? Wow. Looking to finally get rid of SCSI. (Though
>Fibre Channel is what really looks exciting)

IBM has been selling SSA drives and adapters for some time for the RAID market.
Details can be found from the IBM Storage Systems Division OEM Storage
home page (http://www.almaden.ibm.com/storage/oem/menu1.htm).

Before you get excited about Fibre Channel, do a real-world comparison
of it to SSA.  And don't forget that Fibre Channel isn't (in general) fibre 
optic.  It was originally designed for fibre optic, but what is being implemented
is on copper wire.


Chuck Tribolet
San Jose, CA
 
Silicon Valley - best day job in the world