Not quite ancient, but still from the early 90's, my 4gig SCSI hard drive
is still in use with my BBS (DarkForce)...

That drive has been a real trooper, still going strong after all these
years... :)


/\
Dark><Lord
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On 27 Jul 22 11:48:24 Darklord wrote...

Not quite ancient, but still from the early 90's, my 4gig SCSI hard
drive is still in use with my BBS (DarkForce)...

That drive has been a real trooper, still going strong after all
these years... :)

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

I'm seriously considering going back to spinny platters for the BBS. The
more I think about it, the more I question the wisdom of using cards for something with that much write activity.

I just wish the MSTE hadn't become unreliable. I like having the smaller footprint on the desk.

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On 30 Jul 22 04:07:56 Commodore Clifford wrote...

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

I'm seriously considering going back to spinny platters for the BBS.
The more I think about it, the more I question the wisdom of using
cards for something with that much write activity.

I just wish the MSTE hadn't become unreliable. I like having the
smaller footprint on the desk.

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To which Darklord replies...

I've considered SD-cards but as you've mentioned, I've always been a
little concerned about response time and longetivity, especially with (as
you mentioned) all the writes involved with a BBS.

I know what someday, that 4gig SCSI drive of mine will bite the bullet.
It's pretty much inevitable. I do have a new/unused 2gig SCSI drive
waiting as backup (assuming it's not withered away from age) so we'll see
how it goes.

Wait - I thought your Mega STe was now running good and hosting SFHQ's
now? I must have misunderstood...


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On 30 Jul 22 21:05:02 Darklord wrote...

To which Darklord replies...
Wait - I thought your Mega STe was now running good and hosting
SFHQ's now? I must have misunderstood...

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

Well, the Mega STE was getting to the point that if the power got turned
off, even for a moment, it would take hours or days of trying to get it
back on and booting again... Just not reliable... you have a brief power
blip and the BBS is down for a week.

So I moved it to one of my Mega ST's (a Mega 4) and it's been fairly
solid since. Not liking the TOS 1.04, but alas.

Really would have loved to get it on EmuTos, but that's another sad
story.

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On 30 Jul 22 21:05:02 Darklord wrote...

To which Darklord replies...

I've considered SD-cards but as you've mentioned, I've always been a
little concerned about response time and longetivity, especially with
(as you mentioned) all the writes involved with a BBS.

I know what someday, that 4gig SCSI drive of mine will bite the
bullet. It's pretty much inevitable. I do have a new/unused 2gig SCSI
drive waiting as backup (assuming it's not withered away from age) so
we'll see how it goes.

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

What I'm really not liking about spinning drives... getting something
"newer" and I'm wasting tons of space. My OCD doesn't like that. :(

But we'll see.

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Not quite ancient, but still from the early 90's, my 4gig SCSI hard drive

I found all the SCSI drives from about 2-4Gb of that age horribly unreliable. In fairness and retrospect it may have been the controllers but they were mostly AHA-1522 or similar adaptec cards. But the handbrake at the time
tried on in her desktop install linux, and it'd be forever corrupts and wind
up with crosslinked files. I also had the same issue trying it in the file server of the day too. Even the IIgs didn't like it much which was something because it tended to talk to everything nicely.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Hey Spec,

mostly AHA-1522 or similar adaptec cards. But the handbrake at the

That's one of Adaptec's most crap card. Had lots of issues with them...
Totaly junk.



\/orlon
aka
Stephen


--- Talisman v0.43-dev (Linux/m68k)
* Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)

That's one of Adaptec's most crap card. Had lots of issues with them...

Funny, aside from the ~2Gb 3.5" drives, never had a problem with them, and performance was reasonably good too.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Hi Spec,

That's one of Adaptec's most crap card. Had lots of issues with
them...

Funny, aside from the ~2Gb 3.5" drives, never had a problem with them,
and performance was reasonably good too.

We went through a few of them that gave us issues. Even updating the
firmware didn't help... Had to go to a more expensive card (I think the
2940's, great card and still have two of them)....



\/orlon
aka
Stephen


--- Talisman v0.43-dev (Linux/m68k)
* Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)

On 31 Jul 22 16:10:38 Commodore Clifford wrote...

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

Well, the Mega STE was getting to the point that if the power got
turned off, even for a moment, it would take hours or days of trying
to get it back on and booting again... Just not reliable... you have
a brief power blip and the BBS is down for a week.

So I moved it to one of my Mega ST's (a Mega 4) and it's been fairly
solid since. Not liking the TOS 1.04, but alas.

Really would have loved to get it on EmuTos, but that's another sad
story.

To which Darklord replies...

Okay, I knew this part... What made me ask that is your blurb when you
first login, it says something about being in the 21st century with your
Mega STe so I *assumed* (yeah, I know) that you were using it again.

That's the why behind my question. :)

Okay, I went through the same thing with my Mega ST4 that runs DarkForce.
Do what I did, get the STorm ST and the Lightning ST. That way you've got
TOS v2.06, EMUTos, and fast, easy, convenient USB support so you can copy
and backup files with a SD-card. I love it!


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On 31 Jul 22 16:12:20 Commodore Clifford wrote...

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

What I'm really not liking about spinning drives... getting something "newer" and I'm wasting tons of space. My OCD doesn't like that. :(

But we'll see.

To which Darklord replies...

I know. I've got my 4 gigger and the SCSI CD-ROM housed in a separate
case that sits beside the Mega ST4. I always think, wow, if I go internal Ultrasatan or Gigafile or something like that, I can get rid of that box,
the Link 2, the EZ-135, etc, etc,...

But then I'd lose the CD-ROM option for DarkForce. That's pretty unique
among Atari BBS's and I'm loathe to give it up. :)


/\
Dark><Lord
\/

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On 04 Aug 22 11:27:44 Darklord wrote...

On 31 Jul 22 16:12:20 Commodore Clifford wrote...

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

What I'm really not liking about spinning drives... getting
something "newer" and I'm wasting tons of space. My OCD doesn't
like that. :(

But we'll see.

To which Darklord replies...

I know. I've got my 4 gigger and the SCSI CD-ROM housed in a separate
case that sits beside the Mega ST4. I always think, wow, if I go
internal Ultrasatan or Gigafile or something like that, I can get rid
of that box, the Link 2, the EZ-135, etc, etc,...

But then I'd lose the CD-ROM option for DarkForce. That's pretty
unique among Atari BBS's and I'm loathe to give it up. :)

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

Now I should hook up the 100 disk DVD changer and really show you what's
what.

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On 03 Aug 22 07:20:00 Spectre wrote...

I found all the SCSI drives from about 2-4Gb of that age horribly unreliable. In fairness and retrospect it may have been the
controllers but they were mostly AHA-1522 or similar adaptec cards.
But the handbrake at the time tried on in her desktop install linux,
and it'd be forever corrupts and wind up with crosslinked files. I
also had the same issue trying it in the file server of the day too.
Even the IIgs didn't like it much which was something because it
tended to talk to everything nicely.

Spec

To which Darklord replies...

Well, guess I just got lucky then... :)


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\/

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On 10 Aug 22 11:17:26 Commodore Clifford wrote...

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

Now I should hook up the 100 disk DVD changer and really show you
what's what.

To which Darklord replies...

By all means, be my guest. I'm just wondering how long it will take you
to populate all 100 disks. :)

I did have 2 of those Pioneer "6-pack" changers at one time. I got up to
10 CD's online, if I remember correctly, before slowly cutting back down
to the current 3, over time...


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