[OpenIndiana-discuss] Just some notes regarding SB2500 hardware itself

[Martin Bochnig]

>> I also have several USB/Firewire combo cards which I hope fill



Unfortunately these chips don't get detected by OBP.
I just recently learned, that on native USB2.0 boxes (Ultra25/45 and
most newer T servers [but not the first ones]) you are able to boot
off USB2 since 2010, starting with OBP4.30.a !

Unfortunately the SB2500 cannot do this, because its native USB is only 1.1.

I'm poor and need to save. For this reason I have a quad-bay external
Lindy USB2.0 enclosure for SATA disks. I use it all the time. A pity
it cannot be used for booting on all workstations except for the
U25/U45.
Although these get finally cheaper now, but one has to be patient.

Next time we meet on ebay and accidently drive the price high  ;-)




>> Yes, it is a nice Box.
>> Especially the Silver version.
>
>
> Mine might only be Red, but it has zfs mirrored 15k RPM SCSI drives to help
> make up the difference. :-)



I had the Red version for 6 years, it is identical.
Very good.
I just meant, that 1.6GHz is faster than 1.28 GHz.
Unfortunately, if you put 1.6GHz cpu's in the Red model, it does run,
but only at 1.28  ...
And while there are Cpu clock jumpers on the motherboard, the got
disabled and hardlocked by whatever firmware in the chipset! Not the
OBP version causes this. I made a lengthy experiment in July and
finally found out, how you can flash the Silver OBP into a Red model!
It took weeks until I found out how. One needs to overwrite a
read-only constant in OBP's .properties of the / node (or where it
was). That property, which defines the board's Sun FRU number.
Since then my SB2500 Red boots and identifies as SB2500 Silver, yet
this did HAVE NOTHING TO DO with the cpu hardwired clock, nor with the
jumper settings.

The real SB2500 silver just arrived last week. There is a seller in
the UK who sells them at about hundred $, or even lower now.

As your mail was sent in private, I this time removed your name and
sent my response to list.
As somebody may be interested in this Red versus Silver phenomenon.
The SB1500 Red versus Silver show the same behavior.

THIS IS IN BIG CONTRAST to the SB1000/SB2000/SF280R/N20, which are
really 100.00000% ___identical___, as I found out in 2005: Here again
a link: http://www.motherboardpoint.com/sun-blade-2000-vs-sun-blade-1000-and-did-you-ever-see-oysterwalk-upstairs-t146230.html




-
rgds.
   %martin