IN SUMMARY: SPARC CD-RW exist, but are more expensive, especially if you
include the cost of the driver. The solution I see as most promising is to
hang the CD-RW off of a PC (using cheaper hardware and drivers) and
transfer files via the net.
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 15:19:23 -0400
From: "Roger A. Kautz" <rkautz@lynx.dac.neu.edu>
Subject: CD writers on SPARC's
Varian users,
Can anyone recommend a CD writer for SPARC?
I am polishing up a new installation and want to put a CD writer onto the
SPARC (Ultra-5) that runs our Varian Unity-Inova. Previous postings concur
that CD-R are an economical and effective way to archive NMR data.
The SPARC Ultra uses an IDE bus instead of a SCSI bus, so I have been
referred to Sun and warned it may cost $1000, instead of the few hundred I
might expect to pay for an IDE CD-R at Office Depot. (Sun's driver may not
support the other drives). Meanwhile I notice Varian installs a SCSI card,
which has a port on the back, and may be able to accept a SCSI CD-R.
Has anyone any experience with any of these approaches?
-- Roger
====================
From: greg.brissey@nmr.varian.com (Greg Brissey x6951)
Here at Varian NMR SW R&D we use the HyCD software from CDR
(go to http://www.cdr.com )
I am using a Yamaha CDE100 II 4x CD-R writer SCSI
We use it since they support Solaris 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and you can
make one CD that is readable by Unix boxes, WIN95/98/NT and MAC's.
It's not quite up to par compared to WIN95 offerings, but it does
run under Solaris and does a good job.
I use it to cut Vnmr software release master CDs, and archival of FIDs, and
other data...
I would stick with a SCSI CD-R, if it's on a spectrometer don't be acquiring
while making a CD.
Greg Brissey
==========================
From: Michael Strain <strain@mango.uoregon.edu>
We don't have direct experience, but we are in the process of buying
a new Varian system and I have been worrying over the computer stuff.
The SCSI card that Varian provides with the Ultra SPARC is a combination
ethernet/SCSI adaptor. The SCSI feature is explicity intended to
support external disk/tape drives.... so one should expect it to
work for a SCSI CD-R, unless the Sun driver is broken. Will you
use cdrecord? You might check the cdrecord web site for updates on the
Sun driver issues.
--Mike
=======================
From: sebastien.vincent@rdls.nestle.com
Roger
they are, but they are not as safe as once thought (easily scratched for
example). But without becoming paranoid, I installed one here on my SGI and
I am happy.
> The SPARC Ultra uses an IDE bus instead of a SCSI bus, so I have been
> referred to Sun and warned it may cost $1000, instead of the few hundred I
> might expect to pay for an IDE CD-R at Office Depot.
Well, I would not be so sure here. I have a SCSI CD-R drive (Yamaha) on a
SGI O2 and it was already close to the US$ 1000 mark since it is "for UNIX"
and not "for PC". You can probably find cheaper ones, but do not take PC
prices for comparing.
But you have to fork out even more money for the software necessary to press
CDs. This is a) unavoidable b) necessary and c) not very satisfactory (the
soft is really un-userfriendly). It is not only a driver's problem. I use
GEAR software which is the most robust (read: it works).
My conclusion is that it is neither cheaper nor easier than tape to setup,
neither cheaper nor faster to use than tapes (DAT store 8Gb and are
cheaper), but a good way if you have to access data on different plateforms
and if you hate tapes (I do).
So good luck
Sebastien
=======================
From: "Jessica L. Dion" <jdion@zoo.uvm.edu>
I have no direct experience, but if Sun supports a SCSI CD-R drive, there
is no obvious reason that it wouldn't work with Varian's SCSI adaptor
card. As far as I know, scsi is scsi.. however, I would have said the
same thing about memory before these SGI memory problems were brought up.
;-)
Sounds like a great system if you can get it to work, good luck -
- Jessica Dion
============================
From: Maziar Sardashti <mazi@ppco.com>
Roger,
I have an Ultra-1 to which I would like to attach a CD-R. If you get any
good responses to your question, please forward them to me.
Thanks very much in advance.
Mazi.
=============================
Sender: dbabcook@zeeman.unmc.edu
Hey Roger,
I've installed and use a scsi CD-R (Yamaha CDR400Aix, $400) on a Sparc5,
works great but the installation was a bit involved (free-ware to be
compiled). The main concern is that the actual burning of the CD not be
interrupted or slowed. The Sparc5 I use is a data station. I'd be
leary of doing CD burns while using the host for data aquisition.
Dave.
-- Dave Babcook (mailto:dbabcook@zeeman.unmc.edu)========================
From: Clemens Anklin <clemens.anklin@nmr.bruker.com>
Roger
before investing extra $$ on a SCSI CD-R drive have a look at CD-R mastering software for UNIX based workstations. We went through this exercise with SGI's and found the cheapest software to cost around $ 1500. With the $1000 for the drive you are now over the price of a cheap 266 or 300 MHz bare bones PC and a CD-R drive, which usually comes with some Lite or Easy recording software. Once you have mastered the insiduous ways Windows wraeks havoc on your filenames (the keyword to unix readable CD's is ROCKRIDGE or romeo), you have a cheap fast way to generate your CD's.
Regards
Clemens Anklin
============================
From: Deane D McIntyre <dmcintyr@ucalgary.ca>
We are in the market for a CR-R for the same purpose, except that as we have SGI's we need one with a SCSI interface to work with an Indy under Irix 6.5. Any ideas (perfer something that can be attached to one Indy but can be accessed by any of our five SGI's in our network)
Cheers, Deane D McIntyre
=========================
From: lew cary <lcary@rotor.chem.unr.edu>
I have not had to put a cdrw on our Sun systems since I got a new FTIR. This is hosted by a Dell PC. I went to Costco and bought a $200 Pacific Digital CDRW. I am. as we speak, ftp'ing directories from a spark10 to the Dell's disk. Next, burn a cd, and hopefully will be able to mount the new cd and read it directly on the ultra and Spark computers. Hope this helps, Lew
======================
From: "Hsin Wang" <wang@postbox.csi.cuny.edu> Dear AMMRLs,
Yesterday I replied to one of the emails about CD-RW, but forgot to hit "reply to all" button. I thought it might be worthwhile putting in the bulletin board.
--- It is very expensive to put CD-RW drive on an UNIX computer, not that the drive is expensive, but the software cost seems ridiculous. On the other hand, it is easy to record on PC. I have a CD-RW drive on my Dell. I transfer data from SparcStation to PC via Ws_FTP95, make a CD, take it back and mount it on Sun, and use VNMR to read the data. Well, it is not that easy. But it can be done. Here is the steps I worked out, and perhaps many others have too.The making of CD on PC: Most CD-RW on PC came with the Adaptec DirectCD software, which allows you to specify Joliet or ISO9660 format, each with several flavors. Joliet can record long filenames and they will show as such under Windows, but these names become limited to 8 characters, such as "myfile~7", when you mount the CD on Unix machines. So I have used ISO9660 format and selected the 32-character filename option. This unfortunately means one has to be disciplined enough to always limit the length of filenames (including dots and extensions) to 32 characters if CD recording is desired, or else the filename will be truncated. Now the CD is made and there is the problem of the trailing dot...
The problem of trailing dot: The PC (I think, not the CD software) puts a trailing dot after filenames that does not have any extensions. Thus, "myfid/fid" becomes "myfid/fid.", and vnmr cannot load it. Rolf Kyburz has written about this in VNMRNEWS (in Jan or Feb, 1999) and provided a workaround how to mount such CDs. I followed it and it worked perfectly. Perhaps Rolf will be agreeable to have that paragraph posted in these pages. Basically, you will have to stop the volume management as root and mount the CD with notraildot option. Rolf said in the same article that SGI default may also have the trailing dots and therefore this posts no problems for SGI users. For any programs that we have access to the loading scripts, it would seem to me not a problem.
Hsin =========== eof