Re: DEC equivalent of Mylex DAC960?

From: Mike Dorn (mrdorn_at_wavefront.com)
Date: 01/06/04 

Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 22:57:58 -0600

I think these were commonly referred to as a "Raid Array 200" devices,
also went by name of SWXCR. IIRC, DEC part number was KZP<S|A><A|C>,
where one digit indicated 10mhz vs 20mhz, and the other indicated one or
3 scsi channels. You could get 2 different sizes of memory, and there
was a battery option available that would preserve buffer contents over
a powerfail, so you could do write-back caching. I used a number of
these on Alphas running unix at my last job. While they took awhile to
configure, they were pretty solid performers, and never gave any of the
goofy "lost configuration--kiss your data goodbye" problems that my
coworkers had to put up with from the HP raid controllers on their NT
boxes. Failed drive replacement could be done hot, without interrupting
production. They do require separate firmware, but it stays on the
card. They also need a stand-alone configuration utility, which runs
under ARC. (You have to shut Unix down & boot ARC to run the utility
from floppy, and it takes a LONG time to initialize a new mirror/raidset.)

Benjamin Gawert wrote:

> Anyone knows how the DEC equivalent of the Mylex DAC960PG/P/PD/PL 3-Channel PCI RAID adapter is called? It's a long PCI card with 3 68pin connectors (internal), 2 VHDI connectors on the slot cover for external connection, a single PS/2 Memory Module for Cache and an i960 processor.
>
> When used in an Alpha, do the adapter require their own firmware or does the SRM contain the adapter firmware?
>
> Benjamin