SCSI Toolbox :: Newsletter - December 2002
IN THIS EDITION
The History of SCSI Toolbox
November Survey - Winner announced and Feedback put to action
End of Year Mail in Rebate offer!
Did you know?
Ask Dr. SCSI - buying drives on eBay?
Tech Tip - Read Link Status
The History of SCSI Toolbox
Back in 1990, Mike Jones invented the first SCSItoolbox, a hardware-based
tester to help his employees at a systems integration company test SCSI
peripherals. Two years later he co-founded Peripheral Test Instruments,
and started selling the software SCSItoolbox. Over the years the company’s
interest and support of the SCSItoolbox waned, and so in the summer of
2002 Mike spun off the new company, SCSI Toolbox LLC, to get back to his
original goal of providing the most comprehensive SCSI tester possible.
Three upgrades have been released since July 2002, and the SCSItoolbox
is better than ever. And results of our user November survey are currently
being incorporated for the next release! For the best SCSI tool for testing
ALL SCSI/FC/iSCSI/ATAPI peripherals, from a proactive company that listens
and responds to its customers – all you need to remember is SCSI
Toolbox!
For more information about the SCSI Toolbox, LLC please read our about
page here: http://www.scsitoolbox.com/about.html
Survey Winner
First of all SCSI Toolbox thanks all of you who participated in the November
Survey. We would like to congradulate Mark Gradisar of
Quantum Corporation in Colorado Springs, CO.
He is the winner of the Creative Labs MuVo 128MB USB MP3 Player and storage
device!
We would also like to thank everyone for their valuable input and feedback.
There was an overwhelming response to include better graphing for testing
results in the SCSItoolbox (68% of who submitted
the survey wanted better graphing). So to show our manuverablity
to the market place, the NEXT release of the SCSItoolbox will incorporate
extending graphing capabilities!
Click
here to see a sample picture of what's to come in the next release!
Keep an eye out for your next chance to win in the January newsletter!
End of Year Mail in Rebate Offer*
Every SCSItoolbox purchased between now and December 31, 2002
qualifies for a $300 mail in rebate. Each SCSItoolbox
will ship with a rebate card, with the serial number of the SCSItoolbox
filled in. You fill in the name and address section on the form, mail
it in by January 15th, and within a few short weeks you will receive your
very own $300 check from SCSI Toolbox LLC. The money is YOURS,
and this is OUR way of saying thank you for a very good
year of business, come back again and see us soon! For more information
please email sales@scsitoolbox.com
or call Jeremy Wolfe at 720.249.2641.
But please - act soon - this offer ends on News Years Eve, 2002.
Did you know?
Disk defect data is automatically shown on a per-head basis at the end of the display defect data command. This can be helpful in determining certain drive problems. For instance, if there are many grown defects on a single head, that head or its associated electronics channels may be bad.
Always be sure that you scroll the defect data display to the end to see the defects sorted on a per-head basis.
Ask Dr. SCSI
Q. “Dr. SCSI, how can I be sure that the drive
that I am buying for $12 on eBay is robust enough to trust my energy company
customers accounting data with?”
– signed A. Anderson
A. The popularity of online auction sites like eBay has
given birth to a whole new channel for buying and selling SCSI peripherals.
You can easily be an informed buyer by using the SCSItoolbox
to test how hard your device is has to try in order to get your data written
or read. You do this by testing the drive, then examining the LOG
PAGES.
The Sequential Write/Read Test of the entire drive is
a good place to start. Once the test is complete, go to the Disk->Commands->Mode/Log
Page Functions->View Log Pages menu choice. Click on the Browse button,
and select an appropriate .def file for your device. If all else fails,
choose the file default.def.
Double-click on the Write Error Page and the Read Error Page.
Look at the parameters for each of these, and note if the drive shows
that it has been doing error corrections. If it has had to correct as
it reads or writes there may be a problem.
If the drive has a temperature page, you can double-click on that to see
what temperature the drive is running at. Modern high-rpm drives need
lots of airflow to keep happy! Always have some extra
fans blowing across your drives while you are testing. Trust the Doctor
on this - no matter how tasty “baked Barracuda” or “fried
Cheetah” may sound, you don’t want it! Keep all your critters
cool on your workbench while you are testing them.
Your drive may also tell you how many hours it has been powered up. Seagate
drives report this in the Factory Log page. Parameter 0 shows the number
of hours the drive has been powered up. You may have a fairly “new”
drive with lots of power up hours, or you may have an “older”
drive with fewer hours. Just remember what Indy said – “It’s
not the years, it’s the mileage”
Last but not least, when buying drives of unknown pedigree, always check
out the number of Grown Defects. A good rule
of thumb is – if a drive has any Grown Defects,
don’t use it! If your drive has some, try reformatting it, then
retest it. If it still shows any, don’t use it for important data.
Unless the data is for an energy or telcom company, and you’re hoping
that the data just goes away soon... well, you get the picture.
Seagate Fibre Channel drives store all link error status values as they run. These values are stored in parameters 8100h – 8119h in the Temperature LOG PAGE (Log Page code 0Dh).
Here are the Parameter Code definitions:
| Code | Description |
| 8100h | Link Failure Count, Port A (8110h Port B) |
| 8101h | Loss of Synchronization Count, Port A (8111h Port B) |
| 8104h | Invalid Transmission Word Count, Port A (8114h Port B) |
| 8105h | Invalid CRC Count, Port A (8115h Port B) |
| 8106h | LIP F7 Initiated Count, Port A (8116h Port B) |
| 8107h | LIP F7 Received Count, Port A (8117h Port B) |
| 8108h | LIP F8 Initiated Count, Port A (8118h Port B) |
| 8109h | LIP F8 Received Count, Port A (8119h Port B) |
With SCSItoolbox, select the drive, then use Disk Commands->Mode/Log Page Functions->View Log Pages to view Log Page 0Dh.
Read the link error status for each drive on the loop before running a test, then again after the test finishes. If error values for one drive are significantly higher that those same values for the neighboring drives you may have a link problem with that drive or the drive on the loop before it. Check the drives, any interconnect cables, and the port bypass circuitry.
