[Info-vax] IDE disks for Alphaserver DS10

[Michael Moroney]

Dennis Grevenstein <dennis.grevenstein at gmail.com> writes:

>Hi,

>What's the largest IDE disk one can use in an Alphaserver
>DS10? Some say it's close to 130GB, because of limitations
>in the Ali IDE controller while other claim to have seen
>larger disks in use.

There is a ~130GB limit for IDE disks where you have to use a different
protocol (with a larger block # field) to access space beyond that limit.
The VMS driver doesn't have that logic, so it talks to drives using
the old protocol, and therefore IDE drives have a ~130GB limit (as of last 
I knew, V7.3).  This is a problem similar to the ~1GB limit in certain 
Microvax boot ROMs.  Ancient versions of Windoze have the same problem.

You'll also find the VMS IDE driver is SLOW.