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Adaptec Supporting Ultra160 On IA-64 Linux
GeorgieBoy writes: "Adaptec has announced support for Ultra160 SCSI adapters under Intel 64-bit Linux. Looks like IA-64 Linux will be pretty well supported upon Itanium's arrival." There already are SCSI adapters for the (also 64-bit) Alpha under Linux, but this move sounds like a smart one for Adaptec to tie their name to both Linux and IA-64. Other companies planning pre-emptive hardware support? Step right up, please.
Adaptec has high bandwidth Hard drive controllers to sell on the x86 market. They believe iNTEL's claim that this will be Itanium in just a few short months. Therefore they must make this available for Itanium and support it as much as possible.
Since there is only one complete OS that's correctly capable of doing real work on Itanium today; they really have no choice. See this story for details about Turbo Linux on Itanium. This isn't just a kernel or a compiler but a full, functional Linux distribution. The closest thing anyone has to a Linux distribution ( in terms of included Apps ) is Microsoft's "Back Office suite".
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This is nothing new. Remember it was many YEARS after the release of the 386 MS came out with a version of Windows that used any 32bit features. For those who don't remember it was Windows 3.1 and the features were performance tweaks for virtual memory. It would still run on a 286 if you knew how to detune the setup.
All the apps for the platform were 16 bit however. It wasn't until yet more years that they actually released a 32 bit OS. It was Windows NT and though it had some 16 Bit stuff in there it qualified as a 32 bit OS even in early release.
MS will sell a 32 bit OS or even that hybrid 16/32 bit Win98 or WinME on Itanium and the market will lap it up. Perhaps not as quickly or in the volumes that Linux will enjoy but enough to be noticed.
As for Monterey. I have herd a lot of posturing from the people producing it and some talk from people who promise to ship it on boxes but I have yet to here customers who say "We want to use Monterey on Itanium to run our business". Why would they ? It's a compliantly unknown quantity. In the Jargon file it qualifies as Vaporware. I.e. Nobody has seen even an Alpha build.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
What good is a fast transfer rate if you can only hang two devices off it anyhow? Adaptec won't be worried until IDE doesn't limit you to 2 drives on a 14" cable. I mean, even given "theoretical" limits approaching 30MB/sec for some fast drives, the fast is that under real world conditions you'll have difficulty pulling much more than 10MB/sec. Seems kindof like putting racing wheels on a Yugo: the wheels aren't what makes the car go faster, although if you have the speed, they help.
As for SCSI comparison, my Adaptec 2920 does only 10 Mb/s; need I try? ;)
Even with a pair of Quantum Atlas V drives (27 MB/sec write rate), I doubt that any real performance gains will be measured running at 160 MB/sec burst rate over 80 MB/sec (U2W).
Now, when you've got a RAID 0 stripe 4 drives deep, that might show some potential for improvement.
So this one is definitely for the server room.
Those new IBM drives with up to a 16 MB cache - if you have 16 MB cache on each drive, plus 64 MB cache on the RAID controller, then the 80 MB/sec is potentially rate-limiting.
So - how many months until Ultra 4 320/m SCSI?
Paul
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They should think about becoming more like Advansys who actually provide kernel tuning advice.
Or perhaps Symbios who have programming guides and real datasheets for much of their stuff.
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Basically Adaptec should spend some of it's time thinking about the customer now, not the the customer in a year that they are trying to create.
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dronf!