Re: Hard Drives and Terminators

[voss@i40s16.ira.uka.de (Stefan Voss)]

In article <ar31167@pro-newton.cts.com>, tang@pro-newton.cts.com (Bruce Banfield) writes:
|> [stuff about 7 HDs with resistors deleted]
|> it easier to just leave them on, as i'm constantly changing out drives and
|> working on new ones.  if I continue to leave the R-Packs on, am I looking
|> forward to trouble?  Just what is the deal?  and why.  thanks in advance.
|>  

In theory the resistors at both ends of the SCSI bus avoid signal echos. 
Without resistors a signal that reaches the end of the SCSI bus "bounces back"
and disturbs other signals on the bus. 

If you have resistors installed in each of your 7 (wow!) HDs, your computer
should normally only be able to see the first one because signals from/to
the other HDs are "eaten" by the resistors of the first one.

So much for the theory.
The practical use of SCSI HDs on the IIGS has showed that this theory doesn't
hold all the time. It's a matter of try and error to find out if
a specific configuration works or doesn't work.

So, if your 7 HDs work properly with resistors installed, leave them installed.
But do some testing before you store valuable data on them. 
Test several times if the directory structure of the HDs is ok.
Copy a large file from one HD to another and test if the files are still equal.

|>  ----------------------------------
|> Bruce Banfield                     ProLine:  tang@pro-newton
|> UUCP:  crash!pro-newton!tang       Internet: tang@pro-newton.cts.com
|>         Please no E-Mail larger than 15K

Good luck,

Stefan Voss
(voss@ira.uka.de)