[Equinox]

I am still in the process of installing IRIX over the network to the one good 9gb HDD I have in one of my two Octanes.  This lead me to a few questions about purchasing SCSI equipment and disks for my machines:

- If I want to run solid-state disks, say an SD card or SATA SSD, natively inside the front bay of the Octanes, what are my options?
- I want to install some software from CDs but lack an external SCSI CD / DVD reader.  Are there known compatible external players I can look for?
- I have been following a guide for net-installing IRIX, is there such a guide also for netbooting the machine? I'd prefer to go diskless.

Thanks!

[Raion]

I am still in the process of installing IRIX over the network to the one good 9gb HDD I have in one of my two Octanes.  This lead me to a few questions about purchasing SCSI equipment and disks for my machines:

- If I want to run solid-state disks, say an SD card or SATA SSD, natively inside the front bay of the Octanes, what are my options?
- I want to install some software from CDs but lack an external SCSI CD / DVD reader.  Are there known compatible external players I can look for?
- I have been following a guide for net-installing IRIX, is there such a guide also for netbooting the machine? I'd prefer to go diskless.

Thanks!

1. SATA to SCSI adapters exist but are VERY expensive. Don't bother. SCSI2SD performance is poor across the board unless you have absolute ideal conditions. I recommend 15k, 80-pin SCSI drives. They're fast, cheap, and reliable. 
2. Don't install from CD - SGI supports network installs pretty reasonably. SGI software are all EFS images, which can't be even read by a lot of drives due to 512-blocksizes. I have some stuff at http://nonfree.irix.cc 
3. Diskless is a pain, I'm sure it's possible, but it's not reliable

[callahan]

Raion's right. The best disk option for the Octane are surplus 80-pin SCSI disks. Something like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-300GB-U...2309163701

Acard used to make a SCSI-SATA adapter, but they now sell for $1,000+ used. SCSI2SD can't compete with UW SCSI disks and costs far more (see my recent performance post in the hardware section).

I've had good luck with a HP DVD-ROM, like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-0950-3398-A-...3156206385 , but as Raion points out it isn't necessary. Copying/installing from a network is normally far faster and easier. I've never actually had to use a CD in any of my SGIs. Note you'll also need an external 5.25" SCSI drive bay, which have gotten very expensive recently.

[jpstewart]

I use an HP SCSI DVD-ROM, which is just a re-badged Pioneer DVD-305S.  Works fine with my Octane and anything else I've connected it to. 

It's a 50-pin device, so I use a Sun 611 SCSI enclosure.  That has an external 68-pin interface that matches the Octane's external port, but has a 50-pin internal connector for the drive.  The 611 auto-terminates either the whole SCSI bus (if it's the last device) or just the high bytes (if there's another 50-pin device downstream on the SCSI chain).  It's a really handy enclosure to have.  (Those comments apply to the open-front 611 enclosure.)

[Equinox]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I purchased one of the suggested 300GB SCSI disks, should arrive later this week.  Nice to see disks are still reasonably priced. Can't wait for it to arrive later this week

[pcar]

I just received 2 of those 300gb disks, they look like NOS dated March 2013, let the cloning begin...

[pcar]

cloning ~100gb between 2 15k drives taking about 31min on my Octane2