Issues of hardware compatibility are among the most
troublesome in the computer industry today and FreeBSD is by
no means immune to trouble. In this respect, FreeBSD's
advantage of being able to run on inexpensive commodity PC
hardware is also its liability when it comes to support for
the amazing variety of components on the market. While it
would be impossible to provide a exhaustive listing of
hardware that FreeBSD supports, this section serves as a
catalog of the device drivers included with FreeBSD and the
hardware each drivers supports. Where possible and
appropriate, notes about specific products are included.
As FreeBSD is a volunteer project without a funded testing
department, we depend on you, the user, for much of the
information contained in this catalog. If you have direct
experience of hardware that does or does not work with
FreeBSD, please let us know by sending e-mail to the &a.doc;.
Questions about supported hardware
should be directed to the &a.questions (see
for more
information). When submitting information or asking a
question, please remember to specify exactly what version of
FreeBSD you are using and include as many details of your
hardware as possible.
Resources on the Internet
The following links have proven useful in selecting hardware.
Though some of what you see won't necessarily be specific (or even
applicable) to FreeBSD, most of the hardware information out there
is OS independent. Please check with the FreeBSD hardware guide
to make sure that your chosen configuration is supported before
making any purchases.
Sample Configurations
The following list of sample hardware configurations by no means
constitutes an endorsement of a given hardware vendor or product by
The FreeBSD Project. This information is provided only as a public
service and merely catalogs some of the experiences that various individuals
have had with different hardware combinations. Your mileage may vary.
Slippery when wet. Beware of dog.
Jordan's Picks
I have had fairly good luck building workstation and server
configurations with the following components. I can't guarantee that
you will too, nor that any of the companies here will remain "best buys"
forever. I will try, when I can, to keep this list up-to-date but
cannot obviously guarantee that it will be at any given time.
Motherboards
The
motherboard appears to be a good choice for mid-to-high range Pentium
server and workstation systems. You might also wish to investigate ASUS's
offering if it's a 486-class motherboard you're looking
for (Note: These have become increasingly hard to get as ASUS apparently
no longer manufactures them).
Those wishing to build more fault-tolerant systems should also be sure to
use Parity memory or, for truly 24/7 applications, ECC memory. Note
that ECC memory does involve a slight performance trade-off (which may
or may not be noticable depending on your application) but buys you
significantly increased fault-tolerance to memory errors.
At the higher end, the Intel/Venus Pro () motherboard appears to work very well with FreeBSD,
as does its accompanying 200Mhz P6 (Pentium Pro) CPU. Recent price
drops have dropped P6 systems into a very affordable price bracket,
at least in the United States, and for serious server applications you
may wish to look no further than the Pentium Pro. My personal
`make world' times dropped from 3 hours and 40 minutes with a P5/166
to 1 hour and 22 minutes when I upgraded to a P6/200 machine - not
a fair comparison, to be sure, but just to note that in terms of
increased productivity, the P6/200 has definitely been worth the upgrade
for me.
NOTE: The Intel motherboards are designed to a different form-factor
and hence require an entirely different PC case, the so-called
"ATX" case design. Consider this fact carefully if you're thinking of
upgrading an existing system - all the commonly available ATX cases
I've seen so far have been in the "midi-tower" class, with limited space
for drives or other internal peripherals available. On the plus side,
most ATX cases appear to be of much higher quality than their typical PC
counterparts.
The only known interoperability problem with the
chipset (also known as ``Natoma'')
is that the Matrox Meteor frame-grabber board will lock up your system
if used in one of these motherboards. Matrox blames Intel, Intel
blames Matrox, all we know is that it definitely doesn't work. That is
the only card I've had any troubles with in my P6 system and the card
works just fine in my older Triton chipset based motherboard.
Disk Controllers
This one is a bit trickier, and while I used to recommend the
controllers
unilaterally for everything from ISA to PCI, now I tend to lean
towards the
1542CF for ISA, Buslogic Bt747c for EISA and Adaptec 2940 for PCI.
The NCR/Symbios cards for PCI have also worked well for me, though
you need to make sure that your motherboard supports the BIOS-less
model if you're using one of those (if your card has nothing which
looks even vaguely like a ROM chip on it, you've probably got one
which expects its BIOS to be on your motherboard).
If you should find that you need more than one SCSI controller in a
PCI machine, you may wish to consider conserving your scarce PCI
bus resources by buying the Adaptec 3940 card, which puts two SCSI
controllers (and internal busses) in a single slot.
Disk drives
In this particular game of Russian roulette, I'll make few specific
recommendations except to say "SCSI over IDE whenever you can afford it."
Even in small desktop configurations, SCSI often makes more sense since it
allows you to easily migrate drives from server to desktop as falling drive
prices make it economical to do so. If you have more than one machine
to administer then think of it not simply as storage, think of it as a
food chain!
I do not currently see SCSI WIDE drives as a necessary expense unless
you're putting together an NFS or NEWS server that will be doing a lot
of multiuser disk I/O.
CDROM drives
My SCSI preferences extend to SCSI CDROM drives as well, and while
the XM-3501B (also
released in a caddy-less model called the XM-5401B) drive has always
performed well for me, I'm now a great fan of the PX-12CS drive. It's
a 12 speed drive with excellent performance and reliability.
Generally speaking, most SCSI CDROM drives I've seen have been of
pretty solid construction and you probably won't go wrong with an HP or
NEC SCSI CDROM drive either. SCSI CDROM prices also appear to have
dropped considerably in the last few months and are now quite competitive
with IDE CDROMs while remaining a technically superior solution. I now see
no reason whatsoever to settle for an IDE CDROM drive if given a choice
between the two.
CD Recordable (WORM) drives
At the time of this writing, FreeBSD supports 3 types of CDR drives
(though I believe they all ultimately come from Phillips anyway):
The Phillips CDD 522 (Acts like a Plasmon), the PLASMON RF4100 and
the HP 4020i. I myself use the HP 4020i for burning CDROMs (with
2.2-current - it does not work with 2.1.5 or earlier releases of the
SCSI code) and it works very well. See
on your 2.2 system for example scripts used to created ISO9660
filesystem images (with RockRidge extensions) and burn them onto an
HP4020i CDR.
Tape drives
I've had pretty good luck with both
from and
drives from .
For backup purposes, I'd have to give the higher recommendation to the
Exabyte due to the more robust nature (and higher storage capacity) of
8mm tape.
Video Cards
If you can also afford to buy a commercial X server for US$99
from then I can heartily
recommend the card. Note that support for this card is also
getting better with the server, which is available free of charge, though it's
still a fair bit slower than the XiG product at this time. I'm told that
support is also a fair bit better in the 3.2A release of XFree86, but
it's not yet available for general release.
You also certainly can't go wrong with one of
cards -
their S3 Vision 868 and 968 based cards (the 9FX series) also being
quite fast and very well supported by XFree86's S3 server.
Monitors
I have had very good luck with the , as have I with
the Viewsonic offering in the same (trinitron) tube. For larger than
17", all I can recommend at the time of this writing is to not spend
any less than U.S. $2,500 for a 21" monitor if that's what you really
need. There are good monitors available in the >=20" range and there
are also cheap monitors in the >=20" range. Unfortunately, very few are
both cheap and good!
Networking
I can recommend the
Ultra 16 controller for any ISA application and the SMC EtherPower
or Compex ENET32 cards for any serious PCI based networking. Both of
the PCI cards are based around DEC's DC21041 Ethernet controller
chip and other cards using it, such as the Zynx ZX342 or DEC DE435,
will generally work as well. For 100Mbit networking, either the
SMC SMC9332DST 10/100MB or Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B cards will do
a fine job.
If what you're looking for is, on the other hand, the cheapest possible
solution which will still work reasonably well, then almost any NE2000
clone is a good choice.
Serial
If you're looking for high-speed serial networking solutions, then
makes the series, with drivers now in
FreeBSD-current. also manufactures a board with T1/E1
capabilities, using software they provide. I have no direct experience
using either product, however.
Multiport card options are somewhat more numerous, though it has to be
said that FreeBSD's support for 's products is probably the tightest, primarily as a result
of that company's commitment to making sure that we are adequately supplied
with evaluation boards and technical specs. I've heard that the Cyclom-16Ye
offers the best price/performance, though I've not checked the prices lately.
Other multiport cards I've heard good things about are the BOCA and AST
cards, and apparently offers an unofficial driver for their
cards at location.
Audio
I currently use the
Ultrasound MAX due to its high sound quality and full-duplex audio
capabilities (dual DMA channels). Support for Windows NT and OS/2 is
fairly anemic, however, so I'm not sure that I can recommend it as an
all-around card for a machine that will be running both FreeBSD and NT
or OS/2. In such a scenario, I might recommend the AWE32 instead.
Video
For video capture, there's really only once choice - the
card. FreeBSD also supports the older video spigot card from
Creative Labs, but those are getting somewhat difficult to find
and the Meteor is a more current generation frame-grabber with
a higher-speed PCI interface. Note that this card will not work
with motherboards based on the VS440FX chipset! See the
section for details.
Core/ProcessingMotherboards, busses, and chipsets* ISA* EISA* VLBPCI
Contributed by &a.rgrimes;.25 April 1995.
Continuing updates by &a.jkh;.Last update on
26 August 1996.
Of the Intel PCI chip sets, the following list describes
various types of known-brokenness and the degree of
breakage, listed from worst to best.
Mercury: Cache coherency problems,
especially if there are ISA bus masters behind
the ISA to PCI bridge chip. Hardware flaw, only
known work around is to turn the cache
off.
Saturn-I (ie, 82424ZX at rev 0, 1 or 2):
Write back cache coherency
problems. Hardware flaw, only known work around
is to set the external cache to write-through
mode. Upgrade to Saturn-II.
Saturn-II (ie, 82424ZX at rev 3 or 4):
Works fine, but many MB
manufactures leave out the external dirty bit
SRAM needed for write back operation. Work
arounds are either run it in write through mode,
or get the dirty bit SRAM installed. (I have
these for the ASUS PCI/I-486SP3G rev 1.6 and
later boards).
Neptune: Can not run more than 2 bus
master devices. Admitted Intel design flaw.
Workarounds include do not run more than 2 bus
masters, special hardware design to replace the
PCI bus arbiter (appears on Intel Altair board
and several other Intel server group MB's). And
of course Intel's official answer, move to the
Triton chip set, we ``fixed it there''.
Triton: No known cache coherency or bus
master problems, chip set does not implement
parity checking. Workaround for parity issue.
Use Triton-II based motherboards if you have the choice.
Triton-II: All reports on motherboards using
this chipset have been favorable so far. No known
problems.
Orion: Early versions of this chipset suffered from
a PCI write-posting bug which can cause noticeable performance
degradation in applications where large amounts of PCI bus
traffic is involved. B0 stepping or later revisions of the
chipset fixed this problem.
:This support chipset seems to work well,
and does not suffer from any of the early Orion chipset
problems. It also supports a wider variety of memory,
including ECC and parity. The only known problem with it
is that the Matrox Meteor frame grabber card doesn't like it.
CPUs/FPUs* Pentium Pro classPentium classClock speeds
Contributed by &a.rgrimes;.1 October 1996.
Pentium class machines use different clock speeds for the various
parts of the system. These being the speed of the CPU, external
memory bus, and the PCI bus. It is not always true that a "faster"
processor will make a system faster than a "slower" one, due to
the various clock speeds used.
Below is a table showing the differences:
Rated External Clock External to PCI Bus
CPU and Memory Bus Internal Clock Clock
MHZ MHZ** Multiplier MHZ
60 60 1.0 30
66 66 1.0 33
75 50 1.5 25
90 60 1.5 30
100 50* 2 25
100 66 1.5 33
120 60 2 30
133 66 2 33
150 60 2.5 30
166 66 2.5 33
180 60 3 30
200 66 3 33
* The Pentium 100 can be run at either 50MHz external clock with
a multiplier of 2 or at 66MHz and a multiplier of 1.5.
** 66 Mhz may actually be 66.667 MHz, but don't assume so.
As can be seen the best parts to be using are the 100, 133, 166
and 200, with the exception that at a mulitplier of 3 the CPU
starves for memory.
* 486 class* 386 class286 class
Sorry, FreeBSD does not run on 80286 machines. It is nearly
impossible to run today's large full-featured UNIXes on such
hardware.
* Memory
The mininum amount of memory you must have to install FreeBSD is 5 MB.
Once your system is up and running you can that will use less memory.
If you use the boot4.flp you can get away with having only 4 MB.
* BIOSInput/Output Devices* Video cards* Sound cardsSerial ports and multiport cards
&uart;
&sio;
&cy;
* Parallel ports* Modems* Network cards* Keyboards* Mice* OtherStorage Devices
&esdi;
&scsi;
* Disk/tape controllers
* SCSI* IDE* Floppy* Hard drives Tape drives
Contributed by &a.jmb;.2 July 1996.
General tape access commands
mt(1) provides generic access to the tape
drives. Some of the more common commands are rewind,
erase, and status. See the mt(1)
manual page for a detailed description.
Controller Interfaces
There are several different interfaces that support
tape drives. The interfaces are SCSI, IDE, Floppy and Parallel
Port. A wide variety of tape drives are available for these
interfaces. Controllers are discussed in
SCSI drives
The st(4) driver provides support for 8mm
(Exabyte), 4mm (DAT: Digital Audio Tape), QIC (Quarter-Inch
Cartridge), DLT (Digital Linear Tape), QIC Minicartridge
and 9-track (remember the big reels that you see spinning
in Hollywood computer rooms) tape drives. See the
st(4) manual page for a detailed description.
The drives listed below are currently being used by
members of the FreeBSD community. They are not the only drives
that will work with FreeBSD. They just happen to be the ones
that we use.
4mm (DAT: Digital Audio Tape)
8mm (Exabyte)
QIC (Quarter-Inch Cartridge)
DLT (Digital Linear Tape)
Mini-Cartridge
Autoloaders/Changers
* IDE drives Floppy drives
* Parallel port drives Detailed Information
The boot message identifier for this drive is "ARCHIVE
ANCDA 2750 28077 -003 type 1 removable SCSI 2"
This is a QIC tape drive.
Native capacity is 1.35GB when using QIC-1350 tapes.
This drive will read and write QIC-150 (DC6150), QIC-250
(DC6250), and QIC-525 (DC6525) tapes as well.
Data transfer rate is 350kB/s using dump(8).
Rates of 530kB/s have been reported when using
Production of this drive has been discontinued.
The SCSI bus connector on this tape drive is reversed
from that on most other SCSI devices. Make sure that you have
enough SCSI cable to twist the cable one-half turn before and
after the Archive Anaconda tape drive, or turn your other SCSI
devices upside-down.
Two kernel code changes are required to use this
drive. This drive will not work as delivered.
If you have a SCSI-2 controller, short jumper 6.
Otherwise, the drive behaves are a SCSI-1 device. When operating
as a SCSI-1 device, this drive, "locks" the SCSI bus during some
tape operations, including: fsf, rewind, and rewoffl.
If you are using the NCR SCSI controllers, patch the
file /usr/src/sys/pci/ncr.c (as shown below). Build and install
a new kernel.
*** 4831,4835 ****
};
! if (np->latetime>4) {
/*
** Although we tried to wake it up,
--- 4831,4836 ----
};
! if (np->latetime>1200) {
/*
** Although we tried to wake it up,
Reported by: &a.jmb;
The boot message identifier for this drive is "ARCHIVE
Python 28454-XXX4ASB" "type 1 removable SCSI 2" "density code
0x8c, 512-byte blocks"
This is a DDS-1 tape drive.
Native capacity is 2.5GB on 90m tapes.
Data transfer rate is XXX.
This drive was repackaged by Sun Microsystems as model 411.
Reported by: Bob Bishop rb@gid.co.uk
The boot message identifier for this drive is "ARCHIVE
VIPER 60 21116 -007" "type 1 removable SCSI 1"
This is a QIC tape drive.
Native capacity is 60MB.
Data transfer rate is XXX.
Production of this drive has been discontinued.
Reported by: Philippe Regnauld regnauld@hsc.fr
The boot message identifier for this drive is "ARCHIVE
VIPER 150 21531 -004" "Archive Viper 150 is a known rogue" "type
1 removable SCSI 1". A multitude of firmware revisions exist
for this drive. Your drive may report different numbers (e.g
"21247 -005".
This is a QIC tape drive.
Native capacity is 150/250MB. Both 150MB (DC6150)
and 250MB (DC6250) tapes have the recording format. The 250MB
tapes are approximately 67% longer than the 150MB tapes. This
drive can read 120MB tapes as well. It can not write 120MB tapes.
Data transfer rate is 100kB/s
This drive reads and writes DC6150 (6150MB) and DC6250
(250MB) tapes.
This drives quirks are known and pre-compiled into the
scsi tape device driver (st(4)).
Under FreeBSD 2.2-current, use mt blocksize
512 to set the blocksize. (The particular drive had
firmware revision 21247 -005. Other firmware revisions may
behave differently) Previous versions of FreeBSD did not have
this problem.
Production of this drive has been discontinued.
Reported by: Pedro A M Vazquez vazquez@IQM.Unicamp.BR
Mike Smith msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au
The boot message identifier for this drive is "ARCHIVE
VIPER 2525 25462 -011" "type 1 removable SCSI 1"
This is a QIC tape drive.
Native capacity is 525MB.
Data transfer rate is 180kB/s at 90 inches/sec.
The drive reads QIC-525, QIC-150, QIC-120 and QIC-24 tapes.
Writes QIC-525, QIC-150, and QIC-120.
Firmware revisions prior to "25462 -011" are bug
ridden and will not function properly.
Production of this drive has been discontinued.
Reported by: &a.hm;
The boot message identifier for this drive is "Conner tape".
This is a floppy controller, minicartridge tape drive.
Native capacity is XXXX
Data transfer rate is XXX
The drive uses QIC-80 tape cartridges.
Reported by: Mark Hannon mark@seeware.DIALix.oz.au
The boot message identifier for this drive is "CONNER
CTMS 3200 7.00" "type 1 removable SCSI 2".
This is a minicartridge tape drive.
Native capacity is XXXX
Data transfer rate is XXX
The drive uses QIC-3080 tape cartridges.
Reported by: Thomas S. Traylor tst@titan.cs.mci.com
The boot message identifier for this drive is "DEC
TZ87 (C) DEC 9206" "type 1 removable SCSI 2" "density code 0x19"
This is a DLT tape drive.
Native capacity is 10GB.
This drive supports hardware data compression.
Data transfer rate is 1.2MB/s.
This drive is identical to the Quantum DLT2000. The
drive firmware can be set to emulate several well-known drives,
including an Exabyte 8mm drive.
Reported by: &a.wilko;
The boot message identifier for this drive is "EXABYTE
EXB-2501"
This is a mini-cartridge tape drive.
Native capacity is 1GB when using MC3000XL minicartridges.
Data transfer rate is XXX
This drive can read and write DC2300 (550MB), DC2750
(750MB), MC3000 (750MB), and MC3000XL (1GB) minicartridges.
WARNING: This drive does not meet the SCSI-2
specifications. The drive locks up completely in response to a
SCSI MODE_SELECT command unless there is a formatted tape in the
drive. Before using this drive, set the tape blocksize with
mt -f /dev/st0ctl.0 blocksize 1024
Before using a minicartridge for the first time, the minicartridge
must be formated. FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE and earlier:
/sbin/scsi -f /dev/rst0.ctl -s 600 -c "4 0 0 0 0 0"
(Alternatively, fetch a copy of the scsiformat shell script
from FreeBSD 2.1.5/2.2.) FreeBSD 2.1.5 and later:
/sbin/scsiformat -q -w /dev/rst0.ctl
Right now, this drive cannot really be recommended for FreeBSD.
Reported by: Bob Beaulieu ez@eztravel.com
The boot message identifier for this drive is "EXABYTE
EXB-8200 252X" "type 1 removable SCSI 1"
This is an 8mm tape drive.
Native capacity is 2.3GB.
Data transfer rate is 270kB/s.
This drive is fairly slow in responding to the SCSI
bus during boot. A custom kernel may be required (set SCSI_DELAY
to 10 seconds).
There are a large number of firmware configurations
for this drive, some have been customized to a particular
vendor's hardware. The firmware can be changed via EPROM
replacement.
Production of this drive has been discontinued.
Reported by: Mike Smith msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au
The boot message identifier for this drive is "EXABYTE
EXB-8500-85Qanx0 0415" "type 1 removable SCSI 2"
This is an 8mm tape drive.
Native capacity is 5GB.
Data transfer rate is 300kB/s.
Reported by: Greg Lehey grog@lemis.de
The boot message identifier for this drive is "EXABYTE
EXB-85058SQANXR1 05B0" "type 1 removable SCSI 2"
This is an 8mm tape drive which supports compression, and is
upward compatible with the EXB-5200 and EXB-8500.
Native capacity is 5GB.
The drive supports hardware data compression.
Data transfer rate is 300kB/s.
Reported by: Glen Foster gfoster@gfoster.com
The boot message identifier for this drive is "HP
C1533A 9503" "type 1 removable SCSI 2".
This is a DDS-2 tape drive. DDS-2 means hardware data
compression and narrower tracks for increased data capacity.
Native capacity is 4GB when using 120m tapes. This drive
supports hardware data compression.
Data transfer rate is 510kB/s.
This drive is used in Hewlett-Packard's SureStore
6000eU and 6000i tape drives and C1533A DDS-2 DAT drive.
The drive has a block of 8 dip switches. The proper
settings for FreeBSD are: 1 ON; 2 ON; 3 OFF; 4 ON; 5 ON; 6 ON; 7
ON; 8 ON.
switch 1 2 Result
ON ON Compression enabled at power-on, with host control
ON OFF Compression enabled at power-on, no host
control
OFF ON Compression disabled at power-on; the
host is allowed to control compression
OFF OFF Compression disabled at power-on, no host
control
Switch 3 controls MRS (Media Recognition System). MRS
tapes have stripes on the transparent leader. These identify the
tape as DDS (Digital Data Storage) grade media. Tapes
that do not have the stripes will be treated as write-protected.
Switch 3 OFF enables MRS. Switch 3 ON disables MRS.
Warning: Quality control on these drives
varies greatly. One FreeBSD core-team member has returned 2 of
these drives. Neither lasted more than 5 months.
Reported by: &a.se;
The boot message identifier for this drive is "HP
HP35470A T503" type 1 removable SCSI 2" "Sequential-Access
density code 0x13, variable blocks".
This is a DDS-1 tape drive. DDS-1 is the original DAT
tape format.
Native capacity is 2GB when using 90m tapes.
Data transfer rate is 183kB/s.
The same mechanism is used in Hewlett-Packard's
SureStore tape drive, C35470A DDS format DAT drive, C1534A DDS
format DAT drive and HP C1536A DDS format DAT drive.
The HP C1534A DDS format DAT drive has two indicator
lights, one green and one amber. The green one indicates tape
action: slow flash during load, steady when loaded, fast flash
during read/write operations. The amber one indicates warnings:
slow flash when cleaning is required or tape is nearing the end
of its useful life, steady indicates an hard fault. (factory
service required?)
Reported by Gary Crutcher gcrutchr@nightflight.com
The boot message identifier for this drive is "".
This is a DDS-2 tape drive. DDS-2 means hardware data
compression and narrower tracks for increased data capacity.
Native capacity is 24GB when using 120m tapes. This
drive supports hardware data compression.
Data transfer rate is 510kB/s (native).
This drive is used in Hewlett-Packard's SureStore
tape drive.
The drive has two selectors on the rear panel. The
selector closer to the fan is SCSI id. The other selector should
be set to 7.
There are four internal switches. These should be
set: 1 ON; 2 ON; 3 ON; 4 OFF.
At present the kernel drivers do not automatically
change tapes at the end of a volume. This shell script can be
used to change tapes:
#!/bin/sh
PATH="/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin"; export PATH
usage()
{
echo "Usage: dds_changer [123456ne] raw-device-name
echo "1..6 = Select cartridge"
echo "next cartridge"
echo "eject magazine"
exit 2
}
if [ $# -ne 2 ] ; then
usage
fi
cdb3=0
cdb4=0
cdb5=0
case $1 in
[123456])
cdb3=$1
cdb4=1
;;
n)
;;
e)
cdb5=0x80
;;
?)
usage
;;
esac
scsi -f $2 -s 100 -c "1b 0 0 $cdb3 $cdb4 $cdb5"
The boot message identifier for this drive is "HP
HP35450A -A C620" "type 1 removable SCSI 2" "Sequential-Access
density code 0x13"
This is a DDS-1 tape drive. DDS-1 is the original DAT
tape format.
Native capacity is 1.2GB.
Data transfer rate is 160kB/s.
Reported by: mark thompson mark.a.thompson@pobox.com
The boot message identifier for this drive is "HP
HP35470A 9 09" type 1 removable SCSI 2"
This is a DDS-1 tape drive. DDS-1 is the original DAT
tape format.
Native capacity is 2GB when using 90m tapes.
Data transfer rate is 183kB/s.
The same mechanism is used in Hewlett-Packard's
SureStore tape drive, C35470A DDS format DAT drive, C1534A
DDS format DAT drive, and HP C1536A DDS format DAT drive.
Warning: Quality control on these drives
varies greatly. One FreeBSD core-team member has returned 5 of
these drives. None lasted more than 9 months.
Reported by: David Dawes dawes@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au (9 09)
The boot message identifier for this drive is "HP
HP35480A 1009" "type 1 removable SCSI 2" "Sequential-Access
density code 0x13".
This is a DDS-DC tape drive. DDS-DC is DDS-1 with
hardware data compression. DDS-1 is the original DAT tape
format.
Native capacity is 2GB when using 90m tapes. This
drive supports hardware data compression
Data transfer rate is 183kB/s.
This drive is used in Hewlett-Packard's SureStore
and tape
drives and C35480A DDS format DAT drive..
This drive will occasionally hang during a tape eject
operation (mt offline). Pressing the front panel button
will eject the tape and bring the tape drive back to life.
WARNING: HP 35480-03110 only. On at least two
occasions this tape drive when used with FreeBSD 2.1.0, an IBM
Server 320 and an 2940W SCSI controller resulted in all SCSI disk
partitions being lost. The problem has not be analyzed or
resolved at this time.