[KLUG Hardware] Re: SCSI Question and Advice Request

[Mike Williams]

>
>
>From: Thera <tvpeterson@cbpu.com>
>To: hardware@kalamazoolinux.org
>Subject: [KLUG Hardware] SCSI Question and Advice Request
>Reply-To: hardware@kalamazoolinux.org
>
>Sorry for such a newbish hardware question, but I've never been scuzzy
>before.
>
>When the local Kmart shut down, I acquired thier IBM Netfinity 3500 for
>a song. ( I sang 'Taps' ; They all started crying ; I took the box and
>ran ).
>  
>
Nice.  Not a bad idea grabbing an old workhorse machine like that.

>Cerially tho, I've torn her down completely for dust-bunnicide, contact
>cleaning, and general admiration of quality design and construction.
>  
>
Nice again.  Probably hasn't been cleaned in forever.

>The re-build is where the question comes in. Her SCSI cable has active
>termination, but I noticed they had jumpered the 'SCSI Term ON' on her
>solitary HDD. Doesn't this over-ride the active terminator on the cable
>with a less desireable on-card termination ? ...or does it just say 'I'm
>the last device on the chain so look for termination after me' ?
>  
>
Meaning the cable has a terminator block on the end of it?  Terminating 
the drive then having another terminator is breaking the rules, but it 
probably works because the drive terminates the signal and the 
controller never "sees" the terminator.  Technically, you should have 
only one or the other, though.  Controller card termination is 
determined by how many of the card's connectors are used.  If you use 
only one connector (internal, external doesn't matter), you want the 
card's termination ON.  If you use 2 connectors you want termination 
OFF.  Most cards that have more than 2 (external, narrow internal, wide 
internal usually) require that you not use all 3 at once.

>Also, I didn't replace her 440LX mobo. I did hit up online surplus for a
>second processor, 3 more HDDs, CD-RW, and to up her RAM to it's 512Mb
>max, but she's still just a 233MHz w/ 66Mhz bus.
>Still undecided what to do with her. ( My other box is an A7V-133 1GHz
>T-bird home-brew). I'd use her to host my own domain if I had the
>connection/bandwidth, but I don't :(
>
>Any suggestions re: appropriate function, distro/version ?
>
>  
>
With stats like that, it should make a fine file server, or 
anything-else server for that matter.  I wouldn't recommend trying to 
load X though.  You could get a dynip.com or some other dynamic DNS 
service for very little money.  I think dynip.com is about $40.00 a 
year.  Of course, this doesn't help the bandwidth problem.  AFA 
distributions I don't have much advice.  Most people here run Redhat or 
BSWare (which is patched Redhat).