Re: Multiple SCSI controllers on XL366

[David Alan Gilbert <dg cogency co uk>]

Adaptec SCSI controllers: I'd happily swap my Adaptec 2940U for a
Symbios card. The standard Adaptec drivers in the kernel seem to
have nasty problems with Zip drives on my Alpha; although
there is a replacement set of drivers which do work (although
it is a pain having to have a major kernel patch).

Unfortunatly Adaptec have just bought Symbios; there are many
people who are worrying that this will be end of a fine line of controllers.

My experience with Adaptec cards in a couple of situations and the
Linux Adaptec driver is that its not robust to problems - I've
seen machine reboots with no log messages etc. when there
have been SCSI problems or problems with Zip drives etc.
The Symbios driver tends to take problems in its stride,
and the cards are known to be tolerant of marginal cabling as well.

On a less scientific note; the Symbios cards tend to be a heck of a lot
cheaper!!

Dave

P.S. My LX164 motherboard came with an errata sheet which said that there
may be problems with multiple SCSI controllers and that also that
there was one controller which they new had problems in it (I >>think<< it was
the QLogic ISP  but I can't be sure of that)


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