Re: iSeries Disk Drives - Generic?

[Larry Bolhuis <lbolhuis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

You can actually reformat the drives on the system under work with disk 
units and also via iNav. I've taken drives to PCs formatted to 512 and 
then back to 520 on iSeries.

What will clobber you though is the controller asks the drive for it's 
type when it boots up. If it's not 'on the list' then the controller 
will ignore it. 

Bottom line is that it does not work.  Believe me I've tried a number of 
things just to experiment. I would never use non-ibm drives in a 
production system, just way too much risk!

- Larry (aka DrFranken www.frankenseries.com )

CWilt@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Not gonna work.
>
> First problem, iSeries drives are low-level formatted at 520(?) bytes a
> sector vs. the normal 512(?).  While you can get utilities to reformat the
> 520s to 512s, I don't know of any going the other way.
>
> Second problem, iSeries drives do include something  "extra".  I think it's
> mostly differences in the micro-code.  
>
> Charles
>
>
>  
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bill [mailto:billzbubb@xxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 12:45 PM
> > To: Midrange List
> > Subject: iSeries Disk Drives - Generic?
> >
> >
> > I've had a thought that I'm sure won't have a good answer, 
> > but I've got to
> > ask it:
> >
> > Is there something special about the SCSI drives that IBM 
> > puts into the
> > iSeries.  Specifically, my 730 has the large cages that 
> > surround the drive.
> > The drives seem to be 80 pin hot-plug drives.
> >
> > I've played with the idea of taking a cage apart (I have many 
> > spare 4GB
> > arrays) and putting a larger drive in.  Has anyone attempted 
> > anything like
> > this?
> >
> > Bill
> >    

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