I’ve been building up a new server lately. Now I’m ready to move the tape library from the old host to thew new host.
As I opened the new server to insert the existing SCSI card, I discovered that I needed a new SCSI card. It just would not fit. This is the card I was using under FreeBSD 8.4:
ahc0: <Adaptec 2944 Ultra SCSI adapter> port 0xa800-0xa8ff mem 0xfb7df000-0xfb7dffff irq 20 at device 5.0 on pci1
I checked the documentation with my Overland tape library. It was an LVD device. So I hopped on eBay and found a card for about $10 delivered. I uploaded some photographs of the new card.
After inserting the card, and powering up the system, I saw:
$ grep ahc0 /var/run/dmesg.boot ahc0:port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem 0xfebdf000-0xfebdffff irq 21 at device 3.0 on pci4
But no matter what I tried, I could not see the tape devices.
That prompted me to post to the FreeBSD SCSI mailing list. Ken Merry pointed out that I had the wrong card. This was an LVD card as ordered, but my old card was an HVD card. That meant my device was HVD. I needed an HVD card.
Fortunately, I did no damage by connecting an HVD device to my LVD card. I was told that fire was a possibility, but I didn’t find any example of that happening.
My next step was to learn more about this. I found a good list of SCSI symbols and their meanings. You should match the symbols. Like goes with like. In the photos, you can see that that card is labelled with an LVD symbol, and the tape library has an HVD symbol. Clearly, I made an error.
Upon recommendation for HVD cards, I ordered a SYM8751D. It arrived recently, and I took yet more photos.
After installation in the new server, I took these photos during the boot process. By going into the BIOS of the card, I was able to confirm that the tape library and the tape drive were visible to the card. This should mean the OS should have no trouble finding the devices.
After booting into FreeBSD 9.1, the dmseg output is
sym0: <875> port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0xfebeec00-0xfebeecff,0xfebef000-0xfebeffff irq 21 at device 3.0 on pci4 sym0: Symbios NVRAM, ID 7, Fast-20, SE, parity checking sym0: open drain IRQ line driver, using on-chip SRAM sym0: using LOAD/STORE-based firmware.
The output of camcontrol devlist was:
<QUANTUM DLT8000 0250> at scbus7 target 4 lun 0 (sa0,pass10) <OVERLAND LXB 0524> at scbus7 target 6 lun 0 (pass11,ch0)
Yet more lines from dmseg:
ch0 at sym0 bus 0 scbus7 target 6 lun 0 ch0: <OVERLAND LXB 0524> Removable Changer SCSI-2 device ch0: 20.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15, 16bit) ch0: 15 slots, 1 drive, 1 picker, 0 portals sa0 at sym0 bus 0 scbus7 target 4 lun 0 sa0: <QUANTUM DLT8000 0250> Removable Sequential Access SCSI-2 device sa0: 20.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15, 16bit)
Good. Success. My thanks to Scott Long, Kenneth Merry, and Peter Wemm for their help.
