Hard-drive advice...

slackline · Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:31 am Post subject: Hard-drive advice...

Hi,

I've inherited an Ultra 10 from work for nothing and fancy getting Gentoo up and running on it for fun.

However, as they seem to be 'ultra' paranoid they've taken the HD out before letting me have it, so I need to get a replacement.

I've never touched anything but x86's before and would be grateful for some simple advice on an appropriate HD to stick into it.

Should I be looking at IDE or SATA or SCSI HD?

Looking to the future, can anyone recommend a good wiki/documentation place for Ultra 10's.

TIA and apologies for the dumb n00b question,

slack

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject:

slack---line,

The Ultra 10 has the worst hard drive controller known to man but its works ... slowly.
Put an IDE drive in and install there. You will need to use it to boot anyway.

I've added a SIL 3112 SATA controller to my U10 but be careful with your choice of hardware as the SPARC CPU cannot run the on board BIOS. Anything that needs the BIOS executed before it can work will fail.

There is a Gentoo SPARC project, liveCD and so on.
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those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

slackline · Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the tip NeddySeagoon. Not too worried about speed and so forth, its more to learn the intricacies (vagaries) of a different arch.

A cheap IDE it is then

cheers,

slack

rjmars97 · n00b Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 51 Location: Idaho

Along the same lines, I just scored a Sun Fire V120 that does not have a hard drive. From what I gather, it uses a 68 pin Ultra Wide SCSI interface. Can I just grab one of the cheap Compaq or similar drives off ebay, or will I have to pay big cash for a Sun branded drive? Will I also need a drive caddy? This is my first experience with SPARC and Sun hardware, so I'm not sure what to expect.
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korz · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject:

Hi rjmars97,
I have an U60 workstation which uses SCA scsi drives. I was able to get all of my spare sca harddisks to work in my ultra 60 and non of them were original sun spare parts. So, I think, you won't need a Sun branded harddisk, either.
You will probably need a "whole disk" partition on your harddisk. Concerning my U60, if there is no whole disk partition, the machine will not boot from this disk.

Ferris · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject:

There's no "probably" about it. Partition 3 must be the whole disk. For example, here's one from a SB1000:

Disk /dev/sdb (Sun disk label): 27 heads, 107 sectors, 24620 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2889 * 512 bytes

Device Flag Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 0 22 31779 83 Linux native
/dev/sdb2 u 22 698 976482 82 Linux swap
/dev/sdb3 u 0 24620 35563590 5 Whole disk
/dev/sdb4 698 24620 34555329 83 Linux native

Regards,

slackline · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:56 am Post subject:

I've another hardware question and didn't see the point in starting a new thread so will ask here.

I've got a spare HD that I've bunged into the Ultra 10 and am about to start forging ahead with the installation.

One drawback is though that I don't have a monitor for the box. My first thought was to get one of these but I'm not sure if this will work with the Ultra 10. I suspect not since the hardware spec indicates that the keyboard/mouse is mini DIN-8?

Is it possible to do a headless install on a system and ssh in early on? I couldn't find any obvious docs on this.

I also noticed on the hardware spec that the HD is listed as "Up to two 4.3 GB (4500 rpm) or 9.1/20.4 GB (7200 rpm), 3.5-in. Enhanced IDE HDD". I'm guessing this is the spec that Sun were selling it with, and if I have a larger HD it should work?

gerrit_hoekstra · Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:01 am Post subject:

Hi slack--line,

I have a ST3160023A 160GB drive on my beloved Ultra-5 (which I believe is pretty much the same inside as your Ultra-10) and it runs smoothly, although perhaps not optimally. Here is what things look like on my machine:

slackline · Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:24 am Post subject:

Cool, cheers for confirming larger HD's will work and for the advice on the headless install, I've got the keyboard so will have a go at that, sounds like fun anyway. Anyone want to place a bet on me hitting it right first time? :lol:

slack

gerrit_hoekstra · Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:51 pm Post subject:

I did a headless install last night and realized that in my previous posting there were some steps missing and furthermore, that there is a lot else that can go wrong. So I put a fail-proof process together on the Gentoo Wiki:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Perform_a_headless_Gentoo_install_on_a_Sun_SPARC_Ultra-5/10

Comments and corrections are of course invited. I am also keen to hear whether this works for other vintage Sun boxes.
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slackline · Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:03 pm Post subject:

Cool, good work on the write-up.

Not sure if I'll have time this weekend, but will certainly give it a go and let you/the wiki know how things went.

slack

ezod · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Posts: 34 Location: Windsor

I commented on the talk page that I'm pretty sure it's possible to do this with a null-modem cable and a terminal emulator rather than a Type 5 keyboard, which might be useful to some. I'm looking into it.
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Aaron Mavrinac (ezod)

chance2105 · Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:52 pm Post subject:

You could do it blind.

Or, better yet, over serial console:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-sparc-faq.xml#doc_chap2_sect1

ezod · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Posts: 34 Location: Windsor

Ah, I didn't realize that was already covered in the FAQ. Thanks.
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Aaron Mavrinac (ezod)

bkzshabbaz · Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:19 am Post subject:

Since we're on the topic of HDs...I wanted to add a bigger HD to my U60. I've been eyeing a 73GB drive on ebay. Is the U60 restricted to only the drives listed here:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/U60/components
?
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