[HECnet] Largest PATA drive that a DS10 can use?

[Cory Smelosky]

On 29 Nov 2012, at 12:50, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:

On 11/29/2012 12:37 PM, Oleg Safiullin wrote:
I've currently got 3 x 127 GB PATA drives on CHIMPY - what is the
largest drive this machine (DS10) will be capable of using?

"Compaq AlphaServer DS10 Systems, Technical Summary":

Page 7:
---
Disks supported are 20 and 40 GB IDE disks and 18.2 and 36.4
GB UltraSCSI disks. In addition, a 72.8 GB universal wide
Ultra3 SCSI disk is supported with the front access storage
cage.

Page 12
---
System storage 108 GB SCSI or 120 GB IDE with internal storage cage or
218 GB SCSI with front access storage cage

-- 
I'm using two IDE disks: 80Gb and 120Gb.

Uhh..."supported" and "will work" are often two very different things
in DECland.   I wouldn't consider a documentation quote very
authoritative here at all.

That said, the DS10 is a fairly late-model Alpha, introduced in 1999.
I'd expect it to at least support 28-bit LBA, topping out at ~137GB,
but it may support 48-bit LBA (BIG).   I don't recall ever having used a
drive larger than 120GB on a DS10.

Of course for SCSI, the real limit may be much higher.   There are lots
of ways to get big storage on a PCI-based Alpha.

Were there any 66MHz/64-bit PCI alphas? Maybe a PCI-X alpha?


                          -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA