Re: Adaptec USB2Xchange

Bernd Walter wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 12:58:20PM -0800, Pete Carah wrote:
> 
>>I have reason to use a USB to SCSI adapter under FBSD.  I have a USB2Xchange
>>from Adaptec, but (as usual for adaptec) it requires a firmware load, which 
>>appears harder in usb than in PCI.  Does anyone know how to do this?  (Should 
>>we have a generic firmware loader similar in concept to the ndis converter?)
>>
>>A not-as-preferred alternative would be a PC card scsi unit; this won't
>>work on the desktop computers, though.
>>
>>For my immediate application (streaming tape) I could tolerate a userland 
>>driver under ugen.  For disks this wouldn't work without a more general 
>>kernel block-device structure (or a userland link back to the cam/xpt layer,
>>analogous to the tunnel net driver, which couldn't be *too* hard and could 
>>be desirable).
>>
>>Kernel attach message is:
>>ugen0: Adaptec product 0x2002, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2
>>
>>My kernel has ugen/umass/uhid/ums/ucom/uplcom/umodem compiled in, so
>>this (which should show somewhere?) isn't being recognized.
> 
> 
> As far as I know the Adaptec parts can do multiple addreses, which is
> not part of umass specification.
> They may use a vendor extended umass or completely different protocol.
> Whatever it is - the device doesn't offer itself as beeing umass.
> With vendor specs it should be simple to teach our umass driver about
> this special device, even if it really isn't umass.
> Also firmware uploading in USB is very simple if you have vendor specs.
> Without specs all you can do is sniff Windows data and guess.
> 

Getting specs out of Adaptec is about as fun as digging through granite
with a spoon.  Most of the "Adaptec" products that are found on store
shelves these days are just rebranded from other vendors, so it might be
more fruitful to discover the OEM of this part and bother that vendor
for specs.  There doesn't appear to be a driver in the linux tree for
this either, at least not for the Adaptec name of it.

Scott