Re: IEEE-1394 and disks

[Jody McIntyre <scjody@modernduck.com>]

On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 12:53:32PM -0700, Trever L. Adams wrote:
> I have a few questions: How stable is firewire (running at 800Mbps or
> faster, if any is available yet)? How stable is the Linux subsystem,
> especially for firewire disks? Is there any particularly 800Mbps bridge
> chips that should be avoided or used?

The sbp2 subsystem has stability problems, but I'm not exactly sure what
they are.  The core also has a few issues, but I don't think they'll
affect you.  This assumes you're running the latest from linux1394.org
svn as there are quite a few unmerged changes (which will hopefully make
it in to 2.6.12).

> How stable is the subsystem when the chain is nearly full (62 devices is
> full right?)

Having lots of devices shouldn't make any difference, one way or the
other.  62 devices is full.  For performance reasons, a tree topology is
preferred to daisy chaining all the devices.

> How many controllers may be in the system before the Firewire subsystem
> gets confused?

Again, it shouldn't matter.  I'm not sure if the SCSI subsystem imposes
a limit on the number of drives.

I suggest asking future 1394 questions on one of the linux1394 lists:
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=2252  - someone may even have
tried what you're attempting.

Jody

> 
> Trever Adams
> --
> "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a
> miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." -- Albert
> Einstein
> 
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