Would it make sense for a computer to have a SCSI BackPlane as well as cabling running from each drive to the SCSI controller?

8/15/2006 7:20:54 AM

... dont the drives plug directly into the backplane? then one or two fat cables go from backplane to the SCSI controller... right?

8/15/2006 10:35:56 AM

nnnope. Regular 5-device SCSI cable connects the drives to the card. silly tech support tellin me I had a backplane.

8/15/2006 12:22:11 PM

aha, stupid tech support, its funny how they dont believe you when you say "i'm looking right at the inside of the case, and there IS NO BACKPLANE"

8/15/2006 12:28:03 PM

well, I initially wasn't entirely sure what they were talkin about w/ a backplane, cause I've not messed w/ that stuff too much. So I googled that puppy and was like "dude, I don't have this..." and the girl was like "oh, our records show that this model comes with it... blah blah blah dirka." And I was like "whatever, ship it anyway, we'll see." Pull it out of the box, taint nuthin like it in the server. jeez. Thankfully they shipped everything else, too and they weren't trying to say the problem was only with the backplane.

8/15/2006 12:39:40 PM

What type of server?

Is it possible a previous employee took the backplane out and ran a SCSI cable so they could use cheaper disks?

Usually the backplane provides termination as well as assigning SCSI id's to the disks. If they sent you a cable to be used with the backplane there is a good chance it'll cause further issues. Does the cable have a terminator?

[Edited on August 15, 2006 at 3:39 PM. Reason : s]

8/15/2006 3:31:50 PM

It's a HP Proliant ML330 G3. There was definitely no backplane. We have 3 servers of this type, and none have a backplane. All of the cables in the servers have terminators. That was one thing that I checked, though i doubt the arrays would have worked so long without them

And, quite frankly, I'm the only one in the company who knows enough to even be able to open the case of the servers, much less who would take a back plane. So, I doubt that would have happened.

8/15/2006 8:39:59 PM