I have a new server that I'm installing OpenSUSE 11.1 on. It's using Serial SCSI and of course it has Firewire and USB ports.

I need to transfer data from our old server which is using "wide Ultra 320 SCSI" (it appears to use 80 pin connectors). Does anyone know where I can get an adapter to transfer this standard to something else that I can use?

Ideally I'd use USB or maybe FireWire. I could transfer over the network, but that would be very, very slow. The old server has USB 1.0, so transferring files from the server onto an external drive isn't really feasible either.

What amount of data are you talking about? If you put both machines alone on a simple switch, you should be able to transfer 5-10 Mbyte/s. For 500G that is about 14 hours. Would that be too long?

You can also connect both machines back-to-back with a cross connect ethernet cable.

I have found that new SCSI HW is mainly incompatible with older SCSI HW. Connector, voltage, bus, it has all changed and become incompatible with HW from a few years back.

jlinkels

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I can get could speed with a crossover cable or else set up a switch as you suggested. I need to transfer something like 160 GB to 200 GB, so it's not too ridiculous, but I was hoping to get it done in 6 to 8 hours tops.

How would the machines see each other with a crossover cable? It might be easier to set up a switch. I think I have some hanging around that I can use.

Be careful, it should be a switch, not a hub.

Using a crossover cable: give one machine one IP, the other one another IP on the same subnet and the machines will be able to see each other over TCP/IP

e.g.
192.168.10.10
192.168.10.11

Rsync works immediately if you can SSH into that machine, the setup with a crossover or thru a switch doesn't make any difference.

rsync -uav /sourcdir dest_machine:/destdir

I *think* you can use the IP address for dest_machine. If not, open your /etc/hosts file and add the IP addresses for the other machine in each file, together with a fantasy host name.

If you want to make your own crossover cable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_cable

Last, if you have a switch in your network and you simple connect both computers to that switch, data transfer will be almost as fast as in the "two machines alone" setup. A switch sets up a path between machine A and machine B, and that is not influenced by other computers also connected.

jlinkels

Well, I can't be sure if they're on the same switch, but I can do some data rate tests. It may be plenty fast enough as is. That would make life a lot easier.

Then again, I need to hide the servers from the Internet while this is occuring. I don't want the old mail server picking up mail after the mail files are transferred.

Then give them manually a different IP address, which are not on your subnet for sure.

Make sure both machines are on the same subnet though. The switch will connect those two hosts and they will be invisible for anything else. Even if they usually have an official public IP, you can give them a private IP which will be inaccessible from the internet.

jlinkels

Hmm. I suppose if I just gave them different public IP addresses, the mail and users wouldn't know where to go, so that alone should work. And I'm going to have to change the IP addresses anyway as the new server will eventually need the address of the old server. I think I'm all set.