Discussion:
[rescue] Thumpers?
Dave McGuire
2018-06-15 03:27:50 UTC
Permalink
Hey folks. I'm talking to a friend of mine who isn't on this list;
he's trying to get Linux running on a Thumper. He's running into
serious problems getting it booted. I've never actually worked with one
and I'm not close enough to just go over and help him figure it
out...Isn't the Thumper a relatively standard (though beefy in the
storage department) x86 PC? Should it be able to run a modern Linux
distribution like Ubuntu Server or similar?

Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Patrick Finnegan
2018-06-15 03:51:41 UTC
Permalink
Yes, it should just work.

At work/at home, I only ran Linux (RH and Debian) on our X4500 and X4540s.

Feel free to have him contact me off list for specific help. A hardware
fault in the CPU, RAM, disks, or sata backplane is likely at this point in
them.... They weren't the most reliable storage hardware we've had.

Patrick Finnegan
Post by Dave McGuire
Hey folks. I'm talking to a friend of mine who isn't on this list;
he's trying to get Linux running on a Thumper. He's running into
serious problems getting it booted. I've never actually worked with one
and I'm not close enough to just go over and help him figure it
out...Isn't the Thumper a relatively standard (though beefy in the
storage department) x86 PC? Should it be able to run a modern Linux
distribution like Ubuntu Server or similar?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Dave McGuire
2018-06-15 03:58:55 UTC
Permalink
Thank you Pat. I thought that might be the case. I will find out
more about what problems he's having and I may put him in touch with
you. His name is also Pat.

-Dave
Post by Patrick Finnegan
Yes, it should just work.
At work/at home, I only ran Linux (RH and Debian) on our X4500 and X4540s.
Feel free to have him contact me off list for specific help. A hardware
fault in the CPU, RAM, disks, or sata backplane is likely at this point in
them.... They weren't the most reliable storage hardware we've had.
Patrick Finnegan
Post by Dave McGuire
Hey folks. I'm talking to a friend of mine who isn't on this list;
he's trying to get Linux running on a Thumper. He's running into
serious problems getting it booted. I've never actually worked with one
and I'm not close enough to just go over and help him figure it
out...Isn't the Thumper a relatively standard (though beefy in the
storage department) x86 PC? Should it be able to run a modern Linux
distribution like Ubuntu Server or similar?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Jonathan Katz
2018-06-18 14:38:44 UTC
Permalink
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's still a
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome home
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D

I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed special
firmware. Is that true?
Post by Dave McGuire
Thank you Pat. I thought that might be the case. I will find out
more about what problems he's having and I may put him in touch with
you. His name is also Pat.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Doug McIntyre
2018-06-18 15:56:52 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's still a
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome home
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed special
firmware. Is that true?
I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I repaired the one I had with normal
disks with zero issues.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Nick B
2018-06-18 15:59:20 UTC
Permalink
By 'special firmware' maybe they mean the TLER (
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=1478 ) feature?
Nick
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's still a
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome home
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed
special
Post by Jonathan Katz
firmware. Is that true?
I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I repaired the one I had with normal
disks with zero issues.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Doug McIntyre
2018-06-18 17:15:20 UTC
Permalink
The ones I had were all stock Seagate drives, with a Sun logo on the sticker,
but stock Seagate firmware as far as I could tell.
Post by Nick B
By 'special firmware' maybe they mean the TLER (
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=1478 ) feature?
Nick
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's still a
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome home
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed
special
Post by Jonathan Katz
firmware. Is that true?
I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I repaired the one I had with normal
disks with zero issues.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Patrick Giagnocavo
2018-06-18 18:27:48 UTC
Permalink
Concerning who built them, I seem to recall that Celestica built the V20z
and V40z for Sun. The V20z was very closely based on the reference Opteron
mobo that Celestica had. No idea about the Thumpers however.
Post by Doug McIntyre
The ones I had were all stock Seagate drives, with a Sun logo on the sticker,
but stock Seagate firmware as far as I could tell.
Post by Nick B
By 'special firmware' maybe they mean the TLER (
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=1478 ) feature?
Nick
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's
still a
Post by Nick B
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome
home
Post by Nick B
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed
special
Post by Jonathan Katz
firmware. Is that true?
I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I repaired the one I had with normal
disks with zero issues.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Francois Dion
2018-06-18 20:18:10 UTC
Permalink
The thumpers came from the Kealia acquisition. Andy Bechtolscheim had
designed media streaming servers and when Sun acquired Kealia,
Bechtolscheim headed the storage solutions, specifically the X4500 which
were heavily based on the Kealia designs.
Post by Patrick Giagnocavo
Concerning who built them, I seem to recall that Celestica built the V20z
and V40z for Sun. The V20z was very closely based on the reference Opteron
mobo that Celestica had. No idea about the Thumpers however.
Post by Doug McIntyre
The ones I had were all stock Seagate drives, with a Sun logo on the sticker,
but stock Seagate firmware as far as I could tell.
Post by Nick B
By 'special firmware' maybe they mean the TLER (
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=1478 ) feature?
Nick
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's
still a
Post by Nick B
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome
home
Post by Nick B
Post by Jonathan Katz
Post by Jonathan Katz
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed
special
Post by Jonathan Katz
firmware. Is that true?
I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I repaired the one I had with
normal
Post by Doug McIntyre
Post by Nick B
Post by Jonathan Katz
disks with zero issues.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
--
about.me/francois.dion - www.pyptug.org - www.3DFutureTech.info - @f_dion
<http://twitter.com/f_dion>
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Peter Stokes
2018-06-18 16:03:14 UTC
Permalink
Hi All
Post by Doug McIntyre
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's still a
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome home
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed special
firmware. Is that true?
I don't think so, I'm pretty sure I repaired the one I had with normal
disks with zero issues.
From memory did these boxes come from a company who Sun bought originally?
Even so it would be most unusual for a Sun box to require specific firmware,
though as in SCSI disks etc, it may be the case that 'specific' firmware is
used to give a uniform capacity over various manufacturers such as with the
SCSI drives etc. This would be especially the case for boxes like Thumper
where the main function is to RAID them.

Peter
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Phil Stracchino
2018-06-18 20:31:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jonathan Katz
I've always wanted one of these and to load it with SSDs. That's still a
few lotto tickets off. It would be a fun FreeNAS box and an awesome home
high-end SAN with a 10Gb ethernet card for iSCSI :D
I'm not to the "load it with SSDs" part yet...
Post by Jonathan Katz
I remember someone saying that the drives that go into these needed special
firmware. Is that true?
Well it's certainly not true of my Thor, so I'd be surprised if it was
required for a Thumper either.
--
Phil Stracchino
Babylon Communications
***@caerllewys.net
***@co.ordinate.org
Landline: +1.603.293.8485
Mobile: +1.603.998.6958
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
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