Using IDE to SATA/SATA to IDE converters with Netware 5

[dumbchemist]

Hi, I am a newbie here. I have 10+ years experience with Netware starting with 286 up to 6.0.

I am building a new file server and I am having a question about hardware. The MB lacks SATA ports; but, does have 2 IDE ports and a SCSI port (the MB is an Intel SE7501BR2). What I want to do is use IDE to SATA/SATA to IDE converters so that I can use SATA drives in place of the IDE ones. The Netware 5 I am installing will think that it is talking to IDE drives using the converters. What I want to do is mirror 2 SATA drives off one of the converters. In the past, it was forbidden to mirror 2 IDE drives when one is the master and the other the slave. Using one of the converters, the drives will not be controlling the IDE bus: the converter will be doing this.

Does this sound like a plausible solution for replacing IDE drives with SATA drives?

 

[dumbchemist]

An update:

I ended up buying 4 of the IDE to SATA converters and find that they are very bad. Of the 4, only 1 seemed to work about 30% of the time. When it did work, the Bios recognized the SATA drive through the converter. My judgement: the converters are a total waste. Save your money.

 

[goombawaho]

I'm trying to figure out why you would be trying to use IDE drives in a NEW server build. In other words, why would you buy a motherboard that doesn't support SATA? I'm guessing because Netware 5 doesn't support SATA - can't remember that far back. Which brings up the next issue. Why are you not on Netware 6.5? Nobody wants to pay?

Running Netware 5 is, at this point in time, like running Windows NT 4.0!!!

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[dumbchemist]

In response to your questions:

I have many SE7501BR2 MB's so I figured I would use one of them instead of wasting them. I have 2 of them in service now with both of them running Fedora 14 (yes, I know 14 is old).

I am building this server on my own dime so cost is a big concern. I have a pipe dream of setting up a MAN for my local town.

I am not trying to use IDE drives for Netware volumes. I am considering using one IDE drive for DOS and SATA drives (in RAID 5 config) for the non-SYS Netware volumes. The SYS volume will be mirrored SCSI disks. I have used IDE drives in the past for the SYS volume; but, they were for servers that ran in the background. An example is a Backup Exec server that backed up 13 servers nightly which included NW, Windoze and Linux boxes. The Backup server was in the tree; but, not logged into by the average user.

As for Netware 5: I am going to install Netware 5 and then upgrade it to 5.1 and then to 6.5. I have downloaded NW50SP6a, NW51SP7, NW51SP8, NW65OSSP5, NW65PRODSP6, Edirectory 8.73, NW65SP8a and NW65PRODSP8 service packs from Novell and expanded and burned them on CD-RW's. I have the instructions for upgrading from 5.0 to 6.5 and thought I would give it a try. As for licenses, I currently have NW 5 MLA/CLA unlimited connections disk that I bought off E-bay which should solve the connections problem and 2 NW5 server discs. I also have Backup Exec 8.6 for Netware which I have used in the past.

It is a garage sale for buying Netware on E-bay now.

If you go to Novell.com and do some searching, you will find that they say that NW 5 does support SATA drives; but, they do not tell you how to do it. From my experience with NW in the past, I am not surprised. Novell has never impressed me with their technical manuals. Netware 286 was a real horrorshow to install.

 

[goombawaho]

If you wanted to do it the easiest way possible, you would get a new server with Netware 6.5 running on it and use the migration tool to move from Netware 5.0 I have done one in the past and it worked great. Much less hassle than incrementally updating Netware/NDS bit by bit and less risky, like some updates might fail.
Link



"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[dumbchemist]

Well, first off there is no old NW 5 server to migrate to a new NW 6.5 server. I am doing a fresh install of NW 5 and going up in version. I am not going to use an IDE drive for the boot drive. I have installed an SCSI controller and 2-18 GB SCSI HDD's for the C: drive and the SYS volume. The controller allows booting from any SCSI address which makes things easier. When I am finished, I will mirror both HDD's using the NW mirroring. When I get 6.5 running, I will use the SATA drives off an Adaptec AAR-2810 controller (in Raid 5 formation) for the DATA volume.

I had an incident in the past where I had an NW server that I had to shutdown. After doing what I needed, I turned the server on and got the old "no boot device". It turned out that the C: drive HDD had failed in the past which did not concern NW. So, I had to get another drive and install the C:\NWSERVER files from the last backup. You see, I did not remove DOS on any of my NW servers. This allowed me to copy the C: drive files to a directory on the SYS volume so that they would be backed up onto tape. I did this using CRON and the copy function in the TOOLBOX NLM.

The server I have here at home is a Linux box running Samba. This allows my old Win 98 PC to login and transfer files to a shared folder. I can then use my Linux desktop to access the shared folder and copy the files to it. Unfortunately, Samba is not Netware.

 

[goombawaho]

I see. Unfortunately, Netware is not Netware any more!!!!

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[dumbchemist]

An update:

I have NW 5.0 running now and have upgraded it to recognize SATA controllers. In this case, I am using an Adaptec AAR-2810 controller and have 4 HDD's off it for 916 GB's in a RAID 5 setup and with 4 extra ports for more HDD's. I installed Support Pack 6a and the server merrily runs along with one problem. In the upgrade, I lost my TCP/IP bindings on the NIC. When I have time, I will load nwconfig and see what I can do about it. I also have an AAR-2610 SATA controller that I can add to the server to increase the SATA drives by 6 more if I deem it necessary.

 

[Peejay120]

Hello new to this forum - My eperience is NW 2.2 NW 3.12 NW 5.0 and MS 2008. I am experimenting with a NW 5.0 server and like dumbchemist I am trying to use an sata drive. I am having difficulty finding a source for the service packs on netware (NW50SP6a, NW51SP7, NW51SP8). Any sources for these appreciated...

 

[dumbchemist]

In response to your question: You can get the support packs off novell.com web site. You may have to create an account;but, the support packs are available.

 

[goombawaho]

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone is "experimenting" or using Netware, especially Netware 5.0. Netware is dead, dead, dead. And I'm a former NW administrator, so as much as that makes me sad, it is reality. Time to move on.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Provogeek]

Dumbchemist & Peejay120

You can get SATA drivers for NetWare here Keep in mind, there is no support for NetWare of any version. As goombawaho pointed out, the OS is dead and is only useful for legacy applications (though there were never many to speak of for NetWare).

I would suggest virtualizing it though. Would make life a lot easier to deal with the server. VMWare has dropped support for NetWare, so use 5.5 or older (6 blows up NetWare NSS volumes).

Brent Schmidt Keep IT Simple[/color red]
Se±or Network Engineer

http://www.kiscc.com

 

[dumbchemist]

Well, I like to keep Netware alive. Without it, there would an MS monopoly on NOS's which would stifle any improvements. I have never been impressed with Windoze desktops or servers which is why I am running Linux Fedora as my desktop OS. (Do you remember Windows 3.11?) MS has always done its best to eliminate competition and they have almost succeeded in the NOS market. I am glad that I am not in the IT support industry as it is now 99% Microsoft centric. IT graduates only know Windoze and nothing else.

MS has always targeted upper management when getting a company to change to Windoze whereas Novell targeted the IT professionals. Well, we can now see which marketing strategy has been successful.

Anyway, enough of my rant against MS.

I am building a Netware server for my own use on my own dime. I plan on installing 5.0 and then upgrade to 6.5 if possible. If I run into too many roadblocks, I will replace the Netware with Linux Fedora 21. I would not think of Windoze as an NOS.

I have given up on using SATA drives for booting. Instead, I have installed an Adaptec 39320 SCSI card for booting. The 39320 card supports Raid 1. So, I installed 2-18GB drives and set them up as Raid 1. This array will have the DOS partition and the SYS volume. I added a third 18 GB drive to the server as a hot spare for the array. The DATA volume will be 8-320GB internal SATA drives being controlled by an Adaptec 21610 card. One of the 8 will be a hot spare. The remaining 7 will give me ~1.8 TB of storage space. The 21610 can handle 16 HDD's which will allow for 8 external drives being added in the future if I need more room.

 

[Provogeek]

Sounds like you have some Linux knowledge. I would suggest looking at OES 11. All the services that Netware offered running on a Linux kernel. You would first need to setup SLES 11, then install OES 11 as an addon product. Some tools work the same, other work completely different for the same result. eDirectory is basically free these days, so you should be able to download the media from Novell. The only issue you may run into is the activation codes. The codes don't really activate anything except the update channel. So with out an actual license, you won't be able to download updates through the update channel. You can still however download individual modules and update, long and painfull, but still free.

Brent Schmidt Keep IT Simple[/color red]
Se±or Network Engineer

http://www.kiscc.com

 

[goombawaho]

I would not think of Windoze as an NOS.

Funny. Seems like 98% of the rest of humanity does. Not that M$ is 98% of back office servers. Wondering what that breakdown actually looks like? Some flavor of Linux vs. some version of Windows on the back end - percentages.

Provogeek - do you still have customers still running OES or even the Netware 6.5 kernel?

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[dumbchemist]

Yes, I do have some experience with Linux. I have worked with Red Hat 5.2 up to Fedora 14. Even though I am a retired chemist, I have worked at IT support for 10+ years starting with MS DOS 4 up to Windows XP. I lost my job of 9 years because of my lack of an IT degree regardless of my achievements: setup of IP subnets, implementation of DHCP, installation of 6 Netware servers running NDS, installing and configuring Backup Excec to do daily full backups, supervising 3 IT techs, etc. I hold 4 CompTIA certificatons: A+, Network+, Server+ and Linux+ and I have never had any IT education. My education was reading and learning what the best practices of IT are.

OES 11 sounds like an interesting choice. The only consideration is the cost. I am retired and I cannot expend too much money on the server I am building. My current house server is running Fedora 14 and has been running 24/7 for 3 years now.

When I was serving as LAN admin, it was not unusual for my Netware servers to run for 12 months nonstop. They were only shutdown when they needed hardware upgrades or cleaning out the dust bunnies. Once, I had a Linux server run for 18 months nonstop before I had to shut it down. I could not say the same for the one Windoze server I had. It would need to be rebooted weekly in order to keep its performance okay. If it went over a week, its performance would crawl.

I hope that you notice that I am not a fan of MS. I find them to be a juggernaut running over any competition as though they know what is best for the IT industry. I feel that they are not an IT god and have to learn to be less money hungry (i.e. cloud computing).

End of rant II.

 

[Provogeek]

Provogeek - do you still have customers still running OES or even the Netware 6.5 kernel?

Yup,mostly virtual, but it is still there on some customers networks. Even had one find out the hard way that vSphere 6 does not support NetWare. That was fun.

dumbchemist I hear ya on the M$. Was frustrating how many projects I lost because IT was sold on my Novell solution, but the MS sales rep took the CIO out for golf. Do check out OES 11, you should be able to get a demo activation code. You will have to create an account on Novell's site if you don't have one from your IT days already. If you had one, it will still work, have been using the same one my self since 1996. That code will let you build the server to current build version, and when the activation code expires, you just won't be able to update your build version any further. Be sure to mirror the update site so you don't loose access to the update files when your trial expires. You won't get new build updates, but you will still want access to the files in case you rebuild or install a new module that needs a support module not installed already.

Brent Schmidt Keep IT Simple[/color red]
Se±or Network Engineer

http://www.kiscc.com

 

[dumbchemist]

Provogeek:

Thanks for the headups for OES11. I do have an account on novell.com as that is where I got the 5.0 to 6.5 support pack iso and exe files.

I currently have a NW 5.0 CLA/MLA License diskette with Server+Unlimited Connections and a Server+ 5 Connection license diskette I have the 5.0 Operating System, Online Documentation and Oracle CD's. I also have a 10 connection license diskette which is of little value as the MLA/CLA diskette supersedes it. To top it all off, I have Backup Exec 8.0, 8.5 and 9.0. Version 8.0 was complete except there was no serial number making it useless to me. 8.5 and 9.0 are complete and useable. All these came from E-bay.

For backup, I have an Exabyte Autopak 7 which came to me with the shipping blocks still in place. It looks brand new and seems to work. I have not tried it with Backup Exec yet so I do not know its compatibility. I also have 3 Sony TSL-11000 tape drives with one of them in my house Linux server. Unfortunately, none of these drives have the capacity that the volumes will have. What is the current hardware used for data backup?

When I lost my job 11 years ago, it was caused by an audit of the IT department by an outside software firm. The firm sold the idea to the company on converting from Netware to Windoze servers. I had no respect for the firm after I caught them in 2 lies in their report. They claimed that I overwrote the same tape night after night for each server. I had explained to them that I was using the Grandfather-Father-Son rotation scheme which they claimed that they had never heard of. Also, I told them that I was using a Collapsed Backbone at each remote location. Again, they had never heard of it. It makes you wonder what sort of support they could provide. All they wanted was the support money. (In the 9 years I worked at the company, I never had any outside Netware support. Sometimes, I had to wing it.)

 

[goombawaho]

See, now that's bringing personal animus into a discussion, but I do understand.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1745247

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.