Communicator e3000 MPE/iX Release 7.0 Express 1 (Software Release C.70.01) (30216-90328)

62 Chapter4

PCI-SCSI Device Adapter Cards

PCI-SCSI Device Adapter Cards on HP e3000 N-Class and A-Class Systems.

PCI-SCSI Device Adapter Cards on HP e3000 N-Class and

A-Class Systems.

by Jim Hawkins

Commercial Systems Division

With the introduction of N-Class and A-Class Systems, new device adapter cards are

required for the support of SCSI peripherals. These new cards also require new software

and new SYSGEN conﬁguration values. The purpose of this article is to provide an

external “System Administrator” view of these changes in MPE/iX. The opening section of

the article describes the new device Adapter cards. A small section on Card Performance

and Device Connection limits is then provided for reference. Finally the closing section of

this article is a review of SCSI Terminology (which you may want to read ﬁrst if all of this

is new to you). Note: Installation of HP e3000 Device adapter cards is to be performed by

licensed HP Hardware personal only. All documents referred to in this article are available

http://docs.hp.com. The conﬁguration of these cards and attached SCSI devices using

SYSGEN is covered in a separate article in this Communicator.

New Device Adapter Cards for N-Class and A-Class Systems

There are four new Device Adapter Cards available for the N-Class Systems: A4800A,

A5149A, A5150A and, A5159A. A-Class Systems support two of these four cards: the

A4800A and A5149A. Each of these cards can be plugged into one of the system PCI Buses

and will present one or two SCSI Bus port(s) to the outside world. In addition, the N-Class

and A-Class Systems each have a “Core I/O” card which includes modules that provide

SCSI peripheral support. These Core I/O SCSI Buses are implemented using the same

chip set(s) as the new Device Adapter cards and so can be treated as an embedded version

of these new cards.

A4800A - Single Port FWD SCSI-2 (PCI bus) Adapter Card. This card plugs into a PCI Bus

on the system and presents a single SCSI bus to the outside world. This SCSI bus allows

connections to High Voltage Differential (HVD) SCSI peripherals only. Historically on the

HP e3000, HVD SCSI devices have been called “Fast/Wide” devices. This bus must be

terminated using an HVD terminator; typically this is a High Density (HD) 68-pin HVD

Terminator such as the C2905A. (Special Note: This card is not auto-terminating; it

requires an additional physical terminator such as A4700-67098 (1252-6520) be installed

on the card for proper bus operation. This terminator should be included with the card but

can easily be lost if you are not careful.) For details see “A4800A PCI Ultra SCSI Host Bus

Adapter Service and User Guide.”

A5159A - Dual Port FWD SCSI-2 (PCI Bus) Adapter Card. (N-Class Only) This card plugs

into a PCI Bus on the system and presents two (2) independent SCSI buses to the outside

world. These SCSI Buses allow connections to High Voltage Differential (HVD) SCSI

peripherals only. (Historically on the HP e3000, HVD SCSI devices have been called

“Fast/Wide” devices.) Each of these buses must be terminated using an HVD terminator;

typically this is a High Density (HD) 68-pin HVD Terminator such as the C2905A. For

details see “HP A5159A Dual Port PCI to Differential Ultra SCSI Host Bus Adapter

Service and User Guide.”