• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

SCSI2SD in DEC SBB?

I never had a 1000. I had an Alphaserver 800 and a 1200. Generally there are some screws in the back that you take out and the the sides come off.

No manuals? First thing I did whenever I got a new system, or even before I did, was scour the internet for any manuals that might have been scanned or came as PDF's. That stuff is rapidly disappearing from the 'net as old sites fade when people pass or lose interest.

www.manualslib.com

DEC ALPHASERVER 1000A OWNER'S MANUAL Pdf Download

View and Download DEC AlphaServer 1000A owner's manual online. AlphaServer 1000A server pdf manual download.
www.manualslib.com www.manualslib.com

https://archive.org/details/DigitalDECAlphaServer1000OwnersGuide1994 <-- For 1000 not 1000A but probably still useful
archive.org

Digital DEC AlphaServer 1000 1000A Systems READ THIS FIRST System-Specific Release Notes (1996) : Digital : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org

archive.org

Digital DEC AlphaServer 1000A Technical Summary (1997) : Digital : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org

Marketing - Useless except for context: https://ia803009.us.archive.org/9/i...1003062/DEC-AlphaServer-1000A-System_text.pdf
 
I also got inside the cabinet. It had an AEI DSSI PCI card which I removed since it only connected to an external connector on the back. The 2 KZPSC-XA controller boards were for a RAID using the top 4 drives in the StoargeWorks cabinet and an external RAID, probably another SW cabinet. The remaining SCSI controller attached to the bottom 3 drives in the SW cabinet. I'm not sure what it is, here is a picture.
Is this a KZPBA ?
 

Attachments

  • 20240831_233111.jpg
    20240831_233111.jpg
    1.8 MB · Views: 10
I left the KZPDA and the network card in the backplane, in the PCI slots I found them. I went to start the computer, but had to put the sides and top back on (must be an intrusion switch), and it immediately booted from the dkb500 RZ29 disk. I logged in and shut the system down. On power up again I was able to get this:

>>>show config
Digital Equipment Corporation
AlphaServer 1000A 4/266

Firmware
SRM Console: V5.7-83
ARC Console: v4.59
PALcode: OpenVMS PALcode V5.56-7, Digital UNIX PALcode V1.45-12
Serial Rom: V2.8

Processor
DECchip (tm) 21064A-2 266MHz

Memory
384 Meg of System Memory
Bank 0 = 128 Mbytes(32 MB Per Simm) Starting at 0x00000000
Bank 1 = 128 Mbytes(32 MB Per Simm) Starting at 0x08000000
Bank 2 = 128 Mbytes(32 MB Per Simm) Starting at 0x10000000
Bank 3 = No Memory Detected


Slot Option Hose 0, Bus 0, PCI
7 Intel 82375 Bridge to Bus 1, EISA
8 DECchip 21050-AA Bridge to Bus 2, PCI
13 DECchip 21050-AA Bridge to Bus 3, PCI

Slot Option Hose 0, Bus 1, EISA

Slot Option Hose 0, Bus 2, PCI
0 QLogic ISP10x0 pka0.7.0.2000.0 SCSI Bus ID 7
dka400.4.0.2000.0 RRD45
mka500.5.0.2000.0 TLZ07
1 DECchip 21040-AA ewa0.0.0.2001.0 00-00-F8-22-92-9A

Slot Option Hose 0, Bus 3, PCI
0 QLogic ISP10x0 pkb0.7.0.3000.0 SCSI Bus ID 7
dkb400.4.0.3000.0 RZ29B
dkb500.5.0.3000.0 RZ29B
>>>show dev
dka400.4.0.2000.0 DKA400 RRD45 0436
dkb400.4.0.3000.0 DKB400 RZ29B 0016
dkb500.5.0.3000.0 DKB500 RZ29B 0016
dva0.0.0.1000.0 DVA0
mka500.5.0.2000.0 MKA500 TLZ07 553B
ewa0.0.0.2001.0 EWA0 00-00-F8-22-92-9A
pka0.7.0.2000.0 PKA0 SCSI Bus ID 7 5.57
pkb0.7.0.3000.0 PKB0 SCSI Bus ID 7 5.57

Probably fine, but I am tempted to connect the top 4 StorageWorks drives to the 68 pin on board SCSI controller. Would there be an earth shattering Ka-Boom! if I did that? The other option is to find the 68 pin SCSI jumper that connects the top 4 drives to the bottom 3 drives.
 
What you really want is a 3X-KZPEA-DB (Adaptec 39160). 2 independent channels with internal (HD68) and external (VHDCI) connectors for both channels, along with a 50-pin internal ribbon cable connector for narrow devices on one of the 2 channels. Connect one channel to the top 4 bays and the other to the bottom 3 bays, and you can build 3 2-drive shadowsets, with each of the two shadowset members on different controllers.

There may be some magic with PCI device IDs to get the console to recognize it. I think I have the steps to "DECify" a generic Adaptec card around here somewhere.
 
Terri Kennedy said:
What you really want is a 3X-KZPEA-DB (Adaptec 39160). 2 independent channels with internal (HD68) and external (VHDCI) connectors for both channels, along with a 50-pin internal ribbon cable connector for narrow devices on one of the 2 channels. Connect one channel to the top 4 bays and the other to the bottom 3 bays, and you can build 3 2-drive shadowsets, with each of the two shadowset members on different controllers.

There may be some magic with PCI device IDs to get the console to recognize it. I think I have the steps to "DECify" a generic Adaptec card around here somewhere.
Click to expand...
The 3X-KZPEA-DB is what I have in my DS10's for SCSI. One internal Ultra160 SCSI goes to the boot drive and a shadow member. The 50-pin goes to the SCSI2-SD and a SCSI DVD writer (Plextor 716A) so the fast stuff is separated from the slow stuff. Works great.

The catch with the 50-pin (Channel 1A) is that if you use it then the set of Ultra160 connectors is unusable. You only ave the other channel (2B) for the fast stuff. But that worked out okay for me.

There are some available on Ebay for relatively cheap ($30 plus shipping). This is the place I bought mine several years ago https://www.ebay.com/itm/143198574855


www.manualslib.com

COMPAQ 284688-B21 - HP STORAGEWORKS SCSI ADAPER STORAGE CONTROLLER U160 160 MBPS RELEASE NOTE Pdf Download

View and Download Compaq 284688-B21 - HP StorageWorks SCSI Adaper Storage Controller U160 160 MBps release note online. KZPEA-DB Ultra 160 64-Bit PCI–SCSI Dual Channel Storage Adapter Module. 284688-B21 - HP StorageWorks SCSI Adaper Storage Controller U160 160 MBps adapter pdf manual...
www.manualslib.com www.manualslib.com
 
The 3X-KZPEA-DB sounds perfect! I just ordered one and will find out. The weak link in keeping this computer up and running are the mechanical SCSI drives. They appear to be available on ebay for reasonable prices, but I wanted a way to preserve their contents to a solid state SD card. The 2 RZ29's I'm using now were purchased in 2018 off ebay. What is the 'best' way to preserve a VMS system disk contents? How do restore the contents of a failed 4GB disk to say a larger disk, and have the larger disk boot?
 
dtih said:
The 3X-KZPEA-DB sounds perfect! I just ordered one and will find out. The weak link in keeping this computer up and running are the mechanical SCSI drives. They appear to be available on ebay for reasonable prices, but I wanted a way to preserve their contents to a solid state SD card. The 2 RZ29's I'm using now were purchased in 2018 off ebay. What is the 'best' way to preserve a VMS system disk contents? How do restore the contents of a failed 4GB disk to say a larger disk, and have the larger disk boot?
Click to expand...
I have a DS20 (well, I acquired and restored it for the LSSM and delivered it at the beginning of August).

It came with an assortment of 9GB drives in the blue Storageworks caddies. Most were bad - either unrecoverable errors or completely hanging that half of the bus.

I replaced 4 of them with HP-branded Seagate 73GB 15K drives scavenged from Itanium 26x0 systems, and the remaining were 3 generic Seagate 36GB 15K models in the same series as the 73GB ones. I did full formats and verifies with the controller ("run bios"). I had one SBB with a bad interposer and replaced it.

Boot your existing VMS system, mount the new disk /foreign and do a "backup/image sys$sysdevice: <newdiskname>/init/verify/ignore=interlock". Purists will tell you you should boot from a distribution CD or a different disk and do the backup without "ignore=interlock" as otherwise open files may be backed up in an inconsistent state. I haven't bothered to do that in years.

Once you've got all of that done and you're running from the new system disk, set up volume shadowing (between the top slot and the slot 2 from the bottom if you've got a split bus and a dual-channel controller. That way you have a continuous backup if one disk fails. You can do "set bootdef_dev dka0,dkb0" so the system will try the second shadow set member if the first fails.

Also, update the console and any peripheral firmware, preferably by booting the firmware 7.3 (last) CD. There's a way to do it under VMS, but it is overly complicated.
 
Thanks for the help. I'll keep you posted as this progresses. The system came with 7 drives installed, 4 on top were a RAID and the bottom 3 were OS. I bought 2 RZ29 disks and installed VMS 8.4 on one using the hobbyist license at the time. If I remember correctly, the original OS disk had a permanent, non-expiring VMS license. I wanted to be able to save that disk, if possible.
 
The 3X-KZPEA-DB has arrived. While waiting I tried using the external HD50 SCSI port on the back of the Alpha 1000A. It connects to the CDROM and Tape drive and is a Narrow SCSI. I attached a SCSI2SD V5.2, that had RT-11 file systems, using a HD50 to CN50 cable. I did use a USB battery pack to power the SCSI2SD device, don't know if that was necessary. Clearing the cobwebs, I was able to Mount/For and use Exchange to examine the contents.

Next I will install the replacement SCSI controller and see how that goes.
 
I finally got a chance to install the 3X-KZPEA board in the 1000a. Couldn't get it to see the disks, is it too new for this hardware!

The Vax would try to boot from dk*500 but would fail. I tried both configurations with 3X-KZPEA channel A -> top 4 scsi devices in the storage works, channel B -> bottom 3 scsi; and the reverse.

I put the original controller back in and tried the ZuluSCSI on the narrow port in the back of the box, worked OK. The Zulu had a blank 2GB device at unit #0, I didn't try to init it. Forget the procedure for VMS.
 

Attachments

  • vax1000a_console_number3_short.txt
    1.4 KB · Views: 2
To initialize the disk in VMS (with the label THELABEL):
$ INIT DKxnnn: THELABEL
(this will work for a test, but INIT has a lot of options, so RTFM if you have specific use cases in mind). Then to use:
$ MOUNT/SYS DKxnnn: THELABEL
 
Thanks for the commands to init the raw disk. It's been years, the other thing is the board has some damaged capacitors. Should I send it back?
 

Attachments

  • Cap1.jpg
    Cap1.jpg
    130.7 KB · Views: 8
  • Cap2.jpg
    Cap2.jpg
    142.2 KB · Views: 8
Where do I find info on the various SCSI controllers that go into the Alpha? There seem to many variants and I'm trying to sort them out.
 
There are a lot of SCSI options for Alphas and there are also a lot of Alphas, so this is a very valid question. What are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to connect to external storage that's faster than the controller you have with the machine?

The internal shelf on the 1000a is single ended and was originally designed for SCSI-2 FWSE operation (so 20MB/s transfer rate). Any device you have in the SBB blocks that have green tabs would not be faster than that. If you want to use faster devices/controllers, you'll need to mount them externally, and compatibility may be an issue. The SRM console is typically even pickier than OpenVMS. You can check the Systems and Options Catalog from the right era for what was supported when these were new. If you absolutely want something faster I think (but never tested it) that a KZPBA is the most likely to actually work. Make sure you get a single ended one - many of those you find on eBay are HVD and unless you have an HSZ40/50/70 you DO NOT want that. The next higher-performance SCSI card to try would be the KZPCA, which is Ultra2 LVD, and may work as well (but not with the internal shelf). Newer stuff would be less and less likely to work. In general, I find QLogic ISP based cards to be the best supported in Alphas of this vintage (the KZPBA and KZPCA are QLogic cards). I would be very surprised if anything based on Adaptec cards is compatible with an Alpha of this age.

The other kind of interesting(?) SCSI cards you could try are the Mylex DAC960 rebranded RAID cards. The one that will work with the internal shelf is the KZPSC. Similarly, the newer Ultra wide KZPAC may work. Both of these cards are much harder to get to work and they work best with a battery module (KZPSC-UX) that is even harder to find in working condition. If you want RAID I would suggest to start with VMS Volume Shadowing.
 
What I want to achieve is to keep this computer running. The weak link are the rotating disks in the Storage works. I have not yet considered external storage to boot the system from, maybe a good option to keep in mind.

As of today the 1000a has 2 scsi controllers in it; 1 - KZPDA which connects to StorageWorks drives #4-6, and 1 - KZPSC Raid controller which is connected to drives #0-3. I put the 4 RAID drives back in today and the RAID works. I boot from SCSI unit #5 and was able to mount and look at the contents of the RAID array. I did connect a ZuluSCSI to the narrow on board SCSI port on the back of the machine. I was able to INIT and Mount this SD card drive.

I did find a manual for the Mylex DAC960, but nothing is said about DEC alpha.

I need to find the procedure you follow to (1) save the contents of your working VMS boot disk, (2) restore those contents to a new disk in the event that disk crashes. An insurance policy of a sorts. I am aware of terms like 'Stand Alone Backup' and the like, but want to be able to save the contents of my working disk to an SD card and then restore it to a replacement disk. I haven't searched the internet for this info, yet...
 
nadaveiron said:
There are a lot of SCSI options for Alphas and there are also a lot of Alphas, so this is a very valid question. What are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to connect to external storage that's faster than the controller you have with the machine?

The internal shelf on the 1000a is single ended and was originally designed for SCSI-2 FWSE operation (so 20MB/s transfer rate). Any device you have in the SBB blocks that have green tabs would not be faster than that. If you want to use faster devices/controllers, you'll need to mount them externally, and compatibility may be an issue. The SRM console is typically even pickier than OpenVMS. You can check the Systems and Options Catalog from the right era for what was supported when these were new. If you absolutely want something faster I think (but never tested it) that a KZPBA is the most likely to actually work. Make sure you get a single ended one - many of those you find on eBay are HVD and unless you have an HSZ40/50/70 you DO NOT want that. The next higher-performance SCSI card to try would be the KZPCA, which is Ultra2 LVD, and may work as well (but not with the internal shelf). Newer stuff would be less and less likely to work. In general, I find QLogic ISP based cards to be the best supported in Alphas of this vintage (the KZPBA and KZPCA are QLogic cards). I would be very surprised if anything based on Adaptec cards is compatible with an Alpha of this age.

The other kind of interesting(?) SCSI cards you could try are the Mylex DAC960 rebranded RAID cards. The one that will work with the internal shelf is the KZPSC. Similarly, the newer Ultra wide KZPAC may work. Both of these cards are much harder to get to work and they work best with a battery module (KZPSC-UX) that is even harder to find in working condition. If you want RAID I would suggest to start with VMS Volume Shadowing.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link to the Systems and Options catalog, just what I needed!
 
Alphas don't have STABACKITs like VAXen did. To back up an Alpha system disk you boot from the installation CD (or from any other system disk). More details are in the System Manager's Manual. The KZPSC does have manuals floating around, for example here: https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/f...haserver/storage/controllers/kzpac/rcu_ug.pdf. The "Plus" is the KZPAC, but they're similar. The annoying thing about it is running the RCU (its configuration utility) especially if you're using a serial rather than a graphics console. Also, IIRC (it has been 20+ years) if the battery is dead, your write performance will go down the toilet with the KZPSC, and unless you fire up the RCU you won't be able to tell what went wrong.

If what you care about is reliability, I'd say stick to the ZuluSCSI. You can also copy the image files off of its SD Card and back them up using modern devices, which are less likely to fail than the old HDDs or their controllers. I think you're pretty close to your goal.
 
Thanks for the KZPSC manual link, I needed that. The battery you mention, is that the Dallas Chip on the controller board, or the external battery backup? The link to the System Manager Manual didn't work, or maybe I need to try again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top