| G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14060] |
Mon, 27 August 2012 13:45  |
Oliver Fairhall
Messages: 6
Registered: August 2012
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Hi folks,
I have a G4 MDD (FW 400, not 800 model), which I would like to add SCSI
to. All my PCI slots are taken up. I am mainly using this with OS 9.2.2.
I would like to know what is the best featured/most reliable option for
adding SCSI for this machine, that doesn't use a PCI slot?
I use the machine as a legacy DSP farm for my home music studio. I use a
Korg OASYS PCI card, which will not run under OSX. My idea for the SCSI
was to interface with my old hardware samplers (EMU/Ensoniq/Akai).
I have read about some Firewire and USB SCSI adapters, but information
is a little sparse as to how these really perform in practice. Some also
don't allow a complete SCSI chain, just one device. If really necessary,
I could possibly try to free one PCI slot, but I would really rather
not. It seems that some PCI SCSI solutions were more highly regarded. I
certainly would not want too much hassle with an unreliable solution, if
that's all I would get with USB/Firewire SCSI adapters.
BTW, I have heard of PCI expansion racks to add more PCI slots; are
these any good? Is there a performance degradation with these?
Thanks for any pointers/advice.
Cheers,
Oli
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| Re: G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14062 is a reply to message #14060] |
Mon, 27 August 2012 22:53  |
Clark Martin
Messages: 156
Registered: August 2012
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On Aug 27, 2012, at 10:45 AM, Oliver Fairhall wrote:
> I have a G4 MDD (FW 400, not 800 model), which I would like to add SCSI to. All my PCI slots are taken up. I am mainly using this with OS 9.2.2. I would like to know what is the best featured/most reliable option for adding SCSI for this machine, that doesn't use a PCI slot?
>
> I use the machine as a legacy DSP farm for my home music studio. I use a Korg OASYS PCI card, which will not run under OSX. My idea for the SCSI was to interface with my old hardware samplers (EMU/Ensoniq/Akai).
>
> I have read about some Firewire and USB SCSI adapters, but information is a little sparse as to how these really perform in practice. Some also don't allow a complete SCSI chain, just one device. If really necessary, I could possibly try to free one PCI slot, but I would really rather not. It seems that some PCI SCSI solutions were more highly regarded. I certainly would not want too much hassle with an unreliable solution, if that's all I would get with USB/Firewire SCSI adapters.
>
> BTW, I have heard of PCI expansion racks to add more PCI slots; are these any good? Is there a performance degradation with these?
>
Well, forget USB, OS 9 only supports USB 1.1 so you'd be limited to 12MBps.
Most of what I know about the Firewire - SCSI adapters is that they are rare.
What other PCI cards do you have, maybe there are some options there.
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| Re: G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14064 is a reply to message #14060] |
Mon, 27 August 2012 23:25 |
Kris Tilford
Messages: 133
Registered: August 2012
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On Aug 27, 2012, at 12:45 PM, Oliver Fairhall wrote:
> All my PCI slots are taken up.
All three? Isn't there one card you could move or sacrifice?
> I would like to know what is the best featured/most reliable option
> for adding SCSI for this machine, that doesn't use a PCI slot?
You covered the options, which are few, rare, and probably not optimal.
> I have heard of PCI expansion racks to add more PCI slots; are these
> any good?
Even if you had an expansion rack, where would it go so you could
mount the cards? This would seem to be kludgy unless you plan some
serious mod work to adapt such a rack into your G4. There are old Macs
with 6 PCI slots which would be cheaper for the entire Mac than adding
such an expansion rack.
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| Re: G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14066 is a reply to message #14062] |
Mon, 27 August 2012 23:38 |
Oliver Fairhall
Messages: 6
Registered: August 2012
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Hi Clark,
Thanks for your reply.
My other PCI cards are Creamware/Sonic Core Scope DSP cards (3x) and one
AGP video card. The Scope cards can run under OSX, but I'm mainly
working with 9 due to the OASYS PCI. I'm also more familiar with OS 9
than X.
As for slow transfer rates with USB 1, I could possibly live with that.
In most cases, it would be fairly small transfers.
My main concern is reliability and functionality. This area is pretty
new to me. I used to use Amiga for music back in the day, but often
heard about other users with pro samplers connected via SCSI to their
Macs (I think G3 mainly). There is host control software to run under
Mac OS 9 for this. I have the samplers now (they are cheap at this
point) and really like the sounds I can coax from them, but would like
to integrate them into my computing environment. I don't really know
what I'm doing though.
I have read a little about Magma PCI expansion chassis which are
supported under OS 9. Never used one though. Would an Atto SCSI card +
PCI chassis be a reasonable solution? Does adding an expansion chassis
cause any issues with the PCI bus performance? As I'm running a lot of
live DSP audio processing, which uses main memory to some extent, as
well as some CPU load (I think not a lot though) I would not want to
cause issues in the bus performance.
Thanks again for your help,
Oli
On 28/08/12 10:53, Clark Martin wrote:
>
> On Aug 27, 2012, at 10:45 AM, Oliver Fairhall wrote:
>
>> I have a G4 MDD (FW 400, not 800 model), which I would like to add SCSI to. All my PCI slots are taken up. I am mainly using this with OS 9.2.2. I would like to know what is the best featured/most reliable option for adding SCSI for this machine, that doesn't use a PCI slot?
>>
>> I use the machine as a legacy DSP farm for my home music studio. I use a Korg OASYS PCI card, which will not run under OSX. My idea for the SCSI was to interface with my old hardware samplers (EMU/Ensoniq/Akai).
>>
>> I have read about some Firewire and USB SCSI adapters, but information is a little sparse as to how these really perform in practice. Some also don't allow a complete SCSI chain, just one device. If really necessary, I could possibly try to free one PCI slot, but I would really rather not. It seems that some PCI SCSI solutions were more highly regarded. I certainly would not want too much hassle with an unreliable solution, if that's all I would get with USB/Firewire SCSI adapters.
>>
>> BTW, I have heard of PCI expansion racks to add more PCI slots; are these any good? Is there a performance degradation with these?
>>
>
> Well, forget USB, OS 9 only supports USB 1.1 so you'd be limited to 12MBps.
>
> Most of what I know about the Firewire - SCSI adapters is that they are rare.
>
> What other PCI cards do you have, maybe there are some options there.
>
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| Re: G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14067 is a reply to message #14064] |
Tue, 28 August 2012 00:09 |
Oliver Fairhall
Messages: 6
Registered: August 2012
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Junior Member |
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Hi,
I was hoping for a SCSI adapter running from the Firewire 400 bus.
Haven't found one though. I'm not sure I really trust USB adapters for
this purpose. Not so much from the transfer rates, but more because
there have been so many poor quality USB interfaces (speaking
generally), and due to the transfers being managed more directly by the
CPU. My understanding is that Firewire not only has the superior
bandwidth, but that it also features dedicated host control hardware to
manage the transfers. Any advice on this matter would be appreciated.
The alternative I was considering was to have the SCOPE PCI cards hosted
in the MDD PCI slots, a Magma PCI expansion host card in the last on
board slot, and a PCI SCSI card + Korg OASYS PCI mounted within the
expansion chassis. I don't know how well this would perform though. I
guess it would be fine. I believe professional studios were doing
something similar for running Pro Tools rigs back in the day.
I have a 19" equipment rack standing next to my MDD. I would likely
house an expansion chassis there.
I originally chose the MDD as I had access to a cheap dual 1.42 GHz
model with TI4600, 2 GB RAM (1.5GB usable, I know) locally. The faster
memory bandwidth appealed to me for live audio processing/generation. I
don't really know how much of an issue this is in practice though. Also,
I used to use my father's old PPC 6600/60, and I have nightmares about
slow performance in general.
Would you be able to recommend a different model with more PCI slots? I
would rather not go too far back in terms of performance. If the memory
bus is OK, and I can fit a decent single CPU accelerator, that would be
fine.
I also considered picking up an old G3 laptop with on board SCSI just
for interfacing with the samplers. However, my space is getting somewhat
crowded/complicated for computers/instruments. I can add SCSI to my main
studio PC, but some software will only run well under Mac OS 9.
Cheers,
Oli
On 28/08/12 11:25, Kris Tilford wrote:
> On Aug 27, 2012, at 12:45 PM, Oliver Fairhall wrote:
>
>> All my PCI slots are taken up.
>
> All three? Isn't there one card you could move or sacrifice?
>
>> I would like to know what is the best featured/most reliable option
>> for adding SCSI for this machine, that doesn't use a PCI slot?
>
> You covered the options, which are few, rare, and probably not optimal.
>
>> I have heard of PCI expansion racks to add more PCI slots; are these
>> any good?
>
> Even if you had an expansion rack, where would it go so you could mount
> the cards? This would seem to be kludgy unless you plan some serious mod
> work to adapt such a rack into your G4. There are old Macs with 6 PCI
> slots which would be cheaper for the entire Mac than adding such an
> expansion rack.
>
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| Re: G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14127 is a reply to message #14067] |
Tue, 28 August 2012 11:23 |
Jeff Walther
Messages: 134
Registered: August 2012
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Senior Member |
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On Monday, August 27, 2012 11:10:57 PM UTC-5, oli wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I was hoping for a SCSI adapter running from the Firewire 400 bus.
> Haven't found one though.
>
These folks used to sell them:
<http://www.macgurus.com/store/ecom-prodshow/SCSIFR1SX.html>
but they're out of stock and at $140 they weren't very affordable. Still,
you might be able to extract a part number and/or product name and use that
as a basis for your search.
PCI chassis work because the PCI specification includes a device called a
PCI-PCI bridge, which is a device which sits in one PCI slot and creates up
to sixteen more slots downstream of itself. Using a PCI expansion
chassis should not affect the PCI performance of your other slots, however,
all the cards installed in the chassis will share whatever interrupt was
available in the original slot. This can sometimes be a problem.
Also, on the earlier PCI Macs there is a bug in Apple's implementation
which does not properly handle PCI-PCI bridges. The result is that if you
have a daisy chain of bridges, (one bridge in one of the "slots" of another
bridge) and there is more than one PCI card in the "lowest" bridge's
slots, the Mac will freeze up when firmware for the second card tries to
load.
This mainly comes up if you use an expansion chassis (or Umax J700 or S900)
and install a USB/Firewire combo card, or one of the video cards that looks
like two PCI devices to Open Firmware, or one of the SCSI cards (most of
the dual ported cards) which looks like two PCI cards to firmware. Oh,
and some of the ATA cards have the same issue. Essentially, many PCI
cards have what amounts to a PCI-PCI Bridge on the card (USB/Firewire
combo cards literally have a PCI-PCI Bridge chip on board). So when you
install one of these cards in a slot downstream of another PCI-PCI bridge,
e.g. in an expansion chassis, you're creating a chain of two bridges and
Apple's bug rears it's ugly frozen head.
The PCI specification allows for creating several levels of PCI-PCI Bridge,
so the multi-level bridge things should work, but it doesn't (or didn't) in
Apple machines.
I don't know if Apple fixed this firmware bug in later machines, but it was
awfully persistent in earlier machines. It didn't get noticed much
because not that many folks use PCI expansion chassis (the lower 4 (2) PCI
slots in the Umax S900 (J700) are an expansion chassis off of the third PCI
slot) and in more recent machines, the video cards are no longer PCI, and
USB and Firewire are built in, so that eliminated many of the PCI cards
that have two PCI devices on board.
There were two later revisions of the ROM in the x500 and x600 PCI Macs and
neither one did diddly to address this bug.
So, you may need to avoid most of the later Initio SCSI cards, as they're
all dual ported cards, which look like two PCI devices. And the Adaptec
2940U2B has the same issue, IIRC, both the Adaptec and the Apple versions.
Jeff Walther
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| Re: G4 MDD SCSI (pref non PCI) [message #14309 is a reply to message #14060] |
Wed, 29 August 2012 11:36 |
Bruce Ryan
Messages: 25
Registered: August 2012
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> One sampler also has it's own LCD monitor, so five monitors all up. Plus rack hardware, desktop controllers, and keyboard synths. Of course, this all comes with an ample serving of cable soup.
Just thinking about your ‘cable soup’ and the number of monitors you have running - hot, easy to trip over and large electricity bill.
Might it be worth running some form of VNC on your macs. (VNC, rebadged as ‘screen-sharing’ has been part of Mac OS since 10·3, IIRC.)
- For OS9 macs, there’s ‘OS9vnc Server PPC’. I’m using it to observe and control my Pismo from my mac Pro just now.
- For logging into and attempting to help with my parents’ PCs, I’ve used TightVNC and ChickenOfTheVNC, IIRC. (Bit slow over the interweb but OK over LAN.)
(Before using screen-sharing so much, I used to use a 4-port KVM switch to swap my monitor between Pismo, XServe, main mac and work-provided mac but cables took over my desk and shelves, then eventually the KVM unit became flaky.)
I guess VNC might slow your pooters slightly but it might be better than tripping over a cable and dragging loads of kit onto the deck with you.
cheers
Bruce
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