[Raion]

So assuming the array isn't running anything that would cause a system crash, you can totally hotswap it?

HMMMM

I had no idea this was a thing, but I dunno if I still wanna risk it. I'll let someone else try first~

[roach-commuter]

Hot-swap capability has two aspects: electrical safety, and reconfiguration. They are independent.
The electrical safety requirement is satisfied by the SCA-2 connector. It is not possible to damage a drive or HBA when plugging this connector.
Reconfiguration is a question of software support for topology changes and updating internal tables. The scsiha(1M) command can be used to probe for changed devices.

Interesting! At this point I wonder if it could be possible to try and setup some kind of software RAID. Anyone has a tutorial on how to use xvm for such a thing?

[roach-commuter]

Update: I found some documentation here https://irix7.com/techpubs/007-4003-019.pdf
The interesting bits begin at page 107

[sunray]

SGIs do not to my knowledge support hotswap on their SCSI buses. I've never tried on my Origins or Tezro, because it'll certainly cause damage if it doesn't.

If you wanna potentially burn up a proprietary, nonfungible SCSI bus controller or backplane, that's your business...

If the disc has a 80 pin SCA connector then it is hotswappable but if its a 50 or 68 pin it is not.

[sunray]

Update: I found some documentation here https://irix7.com/techpubs/007-4003-019.pdf
The interesting bits begin at page 107

Yes XFS is nice but I think you need a license for it or?

BTW,  A nice project would be to port Solaris ZFS to IRIX!!

[robespierre]

Yes XFS is nice but I think you need a license for it or?

The only time a license (for XLV) is needed is if you use plexing (mirroring). Obviously, SGI is not going to issue new legitimate licenses, but that situation has been handled the same way since before 2000.
The replacement for XLV—XVM—has the same requirement under IRIX: licenses only for plexing. Under Linux, it requires a difference license for other uses.

BTW,  A nice project would be to port Solaris ZFS to IRIX!!

Not qualified to say if it's possible; but filesystems like ZFS need deep hooks inside the kernel.

[Raion]

ZFS on IRIX is unlikely for a variety of reasons:

1. The OpenSolaris ZFS, which is the best candidate, is being deprecated for ZFS-on-Linux, which makes it hundreds of times harder for us to port it.

2. There's no kqueue/epoll for IRIX, and I think that's used in the BSDs and Linux for various parts of ZFS

3. It's big, complex and expensive.

Rather, updating XFS with a new base port, and getting maybe smaller, less complex FS's is more feasible.

[jpstewart]

Yes XFS is nice but I think you need a license for it or?

You might be thinking of CXFS, the Clustered XFS implementation which used to be available for a number of platforms.