HDD FC-AL & SCSI guideline

[g0dzax]

Hello, guys. I'm in need of some basic info. Surfed the net after some stuff regardin SCSI and FC-AL hard-drives and I'm kinda confused. Several questions :
1) Are FC-AL just SCSI drives basically ?
2) Is there any kind of adapter that I can use ( something like a PCI card?) to adapt a SCSI/FC-AL to a normal PC ?
3) Do I need a special motherboard with specifics about it to hook up a SCSI/FC-AL adapter to it?
4) Do common testing software (HDDSentinel, Tune, LLF) work on these drives?
5) If not, is it a must to built a system to hook these drives to ?

Yeah, maybe you'll say I can find this information on the internet, but really, I find contradictory stuff and nothing concrete to give a start on these drives. For now,I'm just interested how I cann hook them up to a system with SATA / what system I must built to hook them up to. Found several adapters with special cables that supposedly should work, yet several guys argued that they are not useful at all. Anyone has any experience in these drives?

[fzabkar]

Fibre Channel Interface Product Manual:
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/Interface%20manuals/100293070a.pdf

You will observe that many references are made to SCSI throughout this publication. This is because Fibre Channel transports the SCSI command set.

12.1 Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology

Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) is designed to recognize conditions that indi-cate imminent drive failure and provide sufficient warning to the host system of impending failure. The host system may use the information provided to trigger it to perform diagnostic, preventative, and/or protective functions (e.g., data backup).

The initiator sets up the parameters for S.M.A.R.T. operation using Mode Select Informational Exceptions Con-trol page 1Ch. The drive reports information about S.M.A.R.T. operation using Request Sense Additional Sense Code 5D 00 and Mode Sense data page 1Ch. Refer to SCSI Command Reference Manual, 100293068, sections 1.11, 1.12, 1.13, and 1.14 for descriptions of the Mode Select and Mode Sense commands. Refer to SCSI Command Reference Manual, 100293068, Section 1.16 for details on the Informational Exceptions Control page. Refer to the individual drive’s product manual to determine if your particular drive supports S.M.A.R.T. and the extent of its implementation of the S.M.A.R.T. system.

Physical connector specs and pinouts:
ftp://ftp.seagate.com/sff/SFF-8067.PDF

Seagate documents:
http://www.google.com/search?q="FC-AL"+site:seagate.com+filetype:pdf

[Doomer]

1. FC drives use the same SCSI commands to access data, so in terms of accessing the drives in OS they are very similar
2. Yes, there is a PCI or PCI-E FC adapter that can be used in a regular PC but you would also need an adapter to connect FC HDD to an FC line (called T-Card) and they are pricey - http://www.cs-electronics.com/product/4 ... d-adapter/
3. No
4. Yes

[g0dzax]

Thanks for the info!