Proliant 5000

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey [mailto:grog at FreeBSD.org]
> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 10:09 PM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: Brad; Lowell Gilbert; freebsd-questions at FreeBSD.org
> Subject: Re: Proliant 5000
>
> >>
> >> 4 X 200MHz processors.
> >> 512Mb RAM
> >> Scsi hardware raid controller.
> >
> > That may be your problem.
>
> Depends on the RAID controller.  Both my machines have RAID
> controllers (2DH).  See
> http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-dec2004.html#10: it seems that 5.1
> panicked.  I'm pretty sure I had no trouble with 5.3, though.
>
> > If the system has an EISA raid array card you cannot install FreeBSD
> > on it.  There is a bug in the compaq raid driver it won't work on
> > eisa.
>
> I don't think these machines are *that* old.
>

Greg, yes they are.  Here's a writeup on the 5000:

http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/159/159.html

Brand new these were $60K according to the article.  It's pretty good
example
of hardware depreciation that something that currently sells for $50 on
the used market:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=56106&item=5747562
471&rd=1

once cost $60K.

Incidentally, if you have a copy of Solaris 2.5.1 x86 around, these still
make nice little servers - if you are willing to spend the 20+ hours or
so needed to install Solaris+patches+gcc+whateveryouwanttorun.

If he has an EISA raid card in there he can replace it with one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=56091&item=5747208
198&rd=1

which will probably boot FreeBSD just fine.

Brad, incidentally, I understand that the Linux driver for the Compaq
smart array card does speak to the EISA cards, so if you just absolutely
don't want to put any more money into this, you can try Linux on it.

I don't mean to send you away, that auction lists $4 for the raid card
that should work.  But I do understand that there are folks who wouldn't
even spend the $4.

Ted