
-------------------------------------------------------------
NOV-CD.DOC -- 19980326 -- Email thread on NetWare and CD-ROMs
-------------------------------------------------------------

	Feel free to add or edit this document and then email
	it back to faq@jelyon.com




Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 09:00:16 CST
From: Mike Williams <novell_at_sas@SAS.BROOKS.AF.MIL>
Subject: Re: CDROM for network - please advise

>I need to put a CDROM on the net.  I would like to install a device
>that will connect directly to our hub (not server) and can be shared.

We use NETower, a tower case with 7 4X CD-ROMs in it.  You can buy one
with only 4 CD-ROMs in it, but you always need more.  It comes
network-ready, just specify 10BaseT or 10Base2 when you order.  (Can
also get it for token ring).  It came with its own cable.  I just
plugged it in to a T-connector, ran a very simple Windows-based
install program on a workstation where I was logged in as supervisor,
then loaded the NLM at the console.
(It did require that I have CLIB.NLM ver 3.12f or higher, which I
didn't, but they provided it with the install disks).

Each time I add a new CD-ROM, I do a few simple steps to make it
available to the network:
   - Insert it in 1 of the bays.
   - Run the Windows utility, which will automatically discover the
     new CD and display an icon for it.
   - Select the icon, then run "configure"--takes about a minute.
   - Then run "mount"--takes less than a minute.

The CD-ROM is now available to be mapped.  If a user goes to file
manager in Windows and selects "disk" and "network connections", the
CD-ROM will be listed there along with the SYS: volume and any other
volumes that are mounted.  (Assuming you give him rights to the CD
during the configure process).

You can tell it during configure to automatically mount the CD each
time it's inserted in a bay.  I do that, so after the initial
configure and mount, I can remove and insert CDs and it automatically
makes them available.

This tower doesn't have to be anywhere near the server.
You can give them the administrator utility so they can install new CDs.

You can have up to 9 NETowers per server, for a total of 63 CD-ROM
volumes.  Just remember that mounting a CD is like mounting another
hard drive--it uses RAM on the server.

It's available from SMS Data Products Group,
1501 Farm Credit Drive,
McLean, VA 22102-5004
(703) 709-9898
Technical Support:  1-800-331-1767.

---------

Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 14:48:00 PST8PDT
From: Daniel Tran <DTRAN@EMELNITZ.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: CDROM for network - please advise - SUMMARY

>I need to put a CDROM on the net. I would like to install a device that
>will connect directly to our hub (not server) and can be shared by users.

Following up on my previous post.  I received many messages on this
topic and almost everyone suggested Microtest DiscPort.

Microtest, Inc
4747 N 22nd St
Phoenix, AZ  85016
SALES: 800-526-9675
FAX: 602-952-6660
TECH: 602-597-6400
BBS: 602-957-7716

---------

Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 23:34:51 +0000
From: Daryl Banttari <banttari@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: CD-Rom Server ?

>We have just been approved to purchase a CD-ROM Server and was
>wondering if anyone could give some reccomendations on a good one.
>We have around $7,000.00 to spend on it.  We are running Novell 3.11
>and 3.12 and will soon be going over to all 3.12 with a thin-net
>back-bone running UTP to all nodes.

I recommend Microtest Discport if you're not doing dozens of CD's.  I
like it because (A) it works; and (B) it requires no TSR's to operate
(you load a couple of NLM's which redirect CD access to the DiscPort
box.)  CD's look just like NW volumes; unless you load a small but
friendly TSR, in which case they look like MSCDEX-supported CDROM
devices when mapped.

------------------------------

Check out the Oct 23 issue of LAN TIMES, Vol. 12 Issue 22 where they did a
review of CD-ROM servers.  Past issues can be found at
	http://www.wcmh.com/lantimes/index.html
but they are a bit behind.

Bryan Johnson

---------

Check out Lan Times October 23 (Vol12, Issue 22) if you can for a
comparison of products. They give the "award" to CD-Manager 2.0, but
Microtest "Discview Pro 4.01" comes close behind. Although I do not
have personal experience with it, I'd probably go with the Microtest
product because it appears to blend in better with Netware 4.x plus
I've heard some good comments about it.

	Richard Phillips <Richard_Phillips@MCINTOSH.COM.AU>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 13:42:40 -0600
From: Joe Doupnik <JRD@CC.USU.EDU>
Subject: Re: CDROM & NETMODEM on 3.11

>I run NW 3.11, and I run 14 CD-ROM drives on it.
>
>The problem is, the version of CDROM.NLM I use is old, and doesn't allow
>me to mount two CD's with the same volume label. I also can't change the
>name of the volume each CD's gets mounted as: it must be the DOS label.
>Most importantly, it's restricted to mounting the CD's using a 4k block
>size. This eats up tons of memory, and I've heard that later drivers fix
>this. Finally, it has some bugs which (upon activation of the bug) crash
>the server.
>
>I'd like to be able to run the later versions of CDROM.NLM on my 3.11 server.
>I've been told that this is possible, with the right patches applied to the
>3.11 system. Does anyone know which patches?
-------------
	...why try the square peg in round hole approach? I use and
recommend an external tiny box for CD-ROMs. Mine is Discport (c as in UK)
made by Microtest. The server runs the supporting NLMs and thinks the
external box on the net is a funny local drive (but without the memory
consumed by a drive). Users see a new volume, and can talk to the tiny box
via the server and its supporting utils (DOS and Windows). Costs about US$600
or so (I've forgotten the current price); it works well, really.
	...I don't think many here will believe the USAF is out of
money. Delaying one engine start by 30 sec on one aircraft will more than
pay for the tiny box...
	Joe D.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 09:33:43 EST5EDT
From: Tom Tipsword <TOM@WILBUR.DB.ERAU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Scinet or Microtest ? CD-ROM server

>Please email me of any comments, which is best, practical experience
>etc. I am also considering adding 7 cd roms directly to the server on
>their own scsi card, I wonder how much of a load this would place on
>the 3.12 server, which is curently lightly loaded, 10% ave cpu DX2,
>plenty of ram, 128 meg, 75 users.

Not as much load as you might think.  We have a 3.12 server (DX2-66,
48MB RAM, 2 GB drives, Adaptec EISA SCSI cards, 100 user, ~ 60% free
cache buffers) which has 35 CD-ROM drives running under SCSI Express
1.4.5.  CPU usage hovers around 5-15% most days, sometimes less,
sometimes more for brief periods of time.  We started this server
with 16MB of RAM and 14 CD-ROM drives for 50 users and it worked
fine, though the free cache buffers were a little on the low side.
The combination seems robust and performs quite well.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 06:19:54 -0600
From: Joe Doupnik <JRD@CC.USU.EDU>
Subject: Re: CDROM in Netware 3.12

>I need a little help to networking a CD in a Netware 3.12 LAN. In the
>Philology faculty would to work with the Spanish language dictionary
>in a classroom for the students. The PCs don't haven CDROM drive,
>it's on the server. But there is a problem, the dictionary isn't a
>database: is an application that need an installation. I put the
>files in a share directory in the server, I included the search path
>in the BAT for run Windows, I mapped the unit of CDROM, the user have
>access to the directory, etc. When the icon is clicked to open the
>dictionary a message appear and say "The CDROM unit there isn't in
>any drive", then the application is closed.
>
>How can to simulate a local CDROM unit in the PC? I need a special
>software, or the MSCDEX can do anything similar? Or worse, the
>application only can run locally in one PC?
-----------

	I think your last paragraph may be the key. Either install MSCDEX
or go to netlab2.usu.edu, cd apps, get cdrom.zip which olds an MSCDEX faker
in less memory.
	Joe D.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 22:41:07 GMT
From: "Stephen M. Dunn" <stephen@BOKONON.USSINC.COM>
Subject: Re: Novell netware cdrom files

$My server is running low on disk space and we aren't do for another drive
$until late next year.  So I began as what any network admistator would do
$is that is clean up system temp files.  I found a directory on sys called
$cdrom$$.rom and in there was hidden 75 file s with the ext.of .rom these
$files take up about 524 megs.  I was woundering can I delete these files?

   Do they actually take up 524 MB?  Use NDIR, not DIR; they're
stored as sparse files and, for most CDs, are significatly less
than the 8 MB they claim.

   Yes, you can delete them, though you will have to endure the
delay while the server recreates them for any CDs you remount in
future.  Dismount all CDs and issue the CD PURGE command.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 22:52:14 GMT
From: Jeffrey Levenglick <jlevengl@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: 4.1, CD Rom not working right

>I suggest you try ASPICD instead of CDNASPI. CDNASPI insn't supported
>anymore with Netware 4.10.
>
>Marcel Cox

Bingo! That was it. I thought about using aspicd, but the upgrade from
3.12 to 4.1 left it in, so I thought novell was still using it.
Jeff

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 15:48:08 EST
From: DavidRo <DavidRo@SILVERPLATTER.COM>
Subject: CD-ROM Towers

For more information on CD-ROM towers, you can check out the following
web site http://bos_npa.silverplatter.com/cdrom.htm.  It has a list of
CD-ROM Networking vendors with hardware and software solutions, as
well as links to vendors web sites if they have them.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 14:01:09 GMT
From: Martin Gibson <101464.1174@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Re: CD towers on a Novell net

>I've used the Discport with good success in a single drive
>configuration.

So have we.

>The docs to mention it supporting a changer, so I'd expect you'd
>have no problems.  The only drawback is that the Discport
>doubles your network traffic when accessing it, since stations
>don't communicate directly with it. This may be a concern of
>networks with high volumes of traffic.  Didn't bother me though.

If the extra (possible) traffic might be a problem then you could
always attach the discport to a separate subnet of its own
through a cheap 16-bit card (e.g. NE2000) - this will have ample
throughput for the CDs and take the extra traffic off the main
LAN.

>It's a good product.

Fully agree, we've had no problems and it seems to be v.fast,
even compared to stand alone, the software installed real clean
(rare in my experience for CD software) and is easy to manage.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 21:48:05 +0100
From: Bo Persson <bop@GANDALF.SE>
Subject: Re: CD towers on a Novell net

>>I've used the Discport with good success in a single drive
>>configuration.
>>
>So have we.
>>
>>The docs to mention it supporting a changer, so I'd expect you'd
>>have no problems.  The only drawback is that the Discport
>>doubles your network traffic when accessing it, since stations
>>don't communicate directly with it. This may be a concern of
>>networks with high volumes of traffic.  Didn't bother me though.
>
>If the extra (possible) traffic might be a problem then you could
>always attach the discport to a separate subnet of its own
>through a cheap 16-bit card (e.g. NE2000) - this will have ample
>throughput for the CDs and take the extra traffic off the main
>LAN.
>

The server will of course cache the data, just like it caches other
disks. This means that frequently accessed CDs will be read directly
from the server RAM. This will significantly reduce the network traffic
for accessing the CDs (actually much more than you might expect).

Infrequently read CDs will not cause much traffic anyway...

>>It's a good product.
>
>Fully agree, we've had no problems and it seems to be v.fast,
>even compared to stand alone, the software installed real clean
>(rare in my experience for CD software) and is easy to manage.

The server generally has much more cache than a stand-alone
computer, so more of the CD will reside in the cache. Additionally,
the entire directory structure is moved to a file on the Netware server
when the CD is mounted.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 21:44:24 GMT
From: Chad McWilliams <chad@IONET.NET>
Subject: Re: Help - Novell 4.10 and IDE CD-ROMS

>Anyone figured out how to make Novell 4.10 recognise IDE CD-ROMS?
>Tried Novell, Ingram Micro and 3 specialist consultants.
>Advice is, use 3.12, Use SCSI, and let us know if you manage it (Great
>tech support Novell - yeh, right!).
>Working with latest beta of CDUP2.exe   Sure, I can use SCSI, but not the
>point is it...

Here's the commands:

LOAD IDEATA.HAM (YOU WILL BE ASKED FOR INT AND PORT)
LOAD IDECD.CDM  (SHOULD BE IN CDUP2)
LOAD CDROM

That's it. Enter CD DEVICE LIST for listing of CDROMS attached and
CD MOUNT 1 (or whatever device number Netware assigns to the CD) to
mount it.

This has worked well for me (the driver is less than perfect though)

If this does not work, check and make sure your system is able to talk to
the CD.  You can do this by trying to load the dos level drivers on your
DOS partition.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 20:25:43 GMT
From: "Rick Dunn, CNA, CNE" <rickdunn@COMPUMEDIA.COM>
Subject: Re: More than 26 drives

There is an easy way to get all of the CD Drives to work on your
network and also volume span the applications that consist of more
than one CD.

Try looking into SCSI EXPRESS from MDI Inc. San Jose, CA

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 21:26:04 -0600
From: Joe Doupnik <JRD@CC.USU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Explanation of LIBUP5 to LIBUP6 induced problems

<snip>
I do not run that CDROM.NLM thingy (Discport works fine, thankyouverymuch).
<snip>
	Joe D.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 10:30:45 -0500
From: "David J. Henderson" <DJHENDER@CC.OWU.EDU>
Subject: Re: CD TOWER with Novell 4 and CBIS 3.11

>I am going to add a CD tower to my network. Does anyone have any
>suggestions?  Brands?  I know this doesn't directly concern Novell, but I
>can't seem to get any information anywhere else.  I run Novell and a CD
>server(currently has 5 external drives hooked up to it) running CBIS
>version 3.11.

We at Ohio Wesleyan University just went through the process of adding a
tower to our network and are using a product from Microtest, Inc. (4747
North 22nd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85016-4708 (602) 952-6400), called Discport
that will connect to a tower with up to 7 drives.  It attaches to the
network and the tower and comes with Discview software for configuring,
mounting and mapping the drive towers as NetWare volumes.  It cost us around
$550.00 (educational pricing).  They also sell a product call CD-NOW! which
includes a modified version of NetWare 4.1 from which you can set up a
dedicated cd server.  The Discport product works fine for us right now, but
if we start adding many more CD to the network, I can see us going to the
CD-NOW! product.

You can purchase towers from Microtest also.  We went with a tower that was
produced by Todd Entrprises, Inc.(31 Water Mill Lane, Great Neck, NY 11021,
(718) 343-1040) because we got a great deal through a non-profit
organization we belong to.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 23:09:05 PST
From: "Orlando L. Stevenson" <olsteve@NPPDNET.COM>
Subject: NetWare Jukebox Issue

Jukebox product selection issue for those interested ...

While discussing another matter (new DLT backup system)- a rep. of an
application developing firm working on imaging software system
stopped in to talk with my internal client; they've been struggling
to find a solution for accessing multiple optical media in a 16
platter (20G) jukebox via single drive letter (i.e. 'O:') with SCSI
Express and NetWare 3.1x.

According to the Vendor, going to a pure UNC path (instead of raw
drive mapping) is not an option at this point with the software mix.
Poor performance and inflexible media changeout make volume spanning
the media unworkable.

The rep explained that going to a Microsoft NTAS/SCSI Express mix
will solve the problem by offering a single drive mapping 'O:' with
optical media loaded/mounted as subdirectories- (like mounting UNIX
slices onto the 'root' partition).  The Oracle database for stored
image file paths would point to the exact media while the application
mix gets the single drive mapping required.

My question is what mainstream NetWare product is available to mount
jukebox optical media in a similiar, directory oriented manner?

Perhaps some sort of NFS for NetWare?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 02 Apr 96 21:41:00 -0500
From: eric.engelmann@wdn.com (Eric Engelmann)
Org.: World Data Network BBS.  Since 1984.  Telnet wdn.com.

>Could you send me pricing info on this? Thx.

Here are the file counts for EMS Prof. Shareware's 11-95 CDROM
of NetWare Utility shareware. $59.50. Voice:+1(301)924-3594
Fax:+1(301)963-2708. 4505 Buckhurst Ct., Olney MD 20832-1830

***  PD/SW Files in the Current NetWare Utility Library  ***

3270               12  Apple               6  AppWare for Mac     1
AppWare for Win1.2  1  AS400               7  Auditing            3
Backup             43  Batch              10  BBS                 1
Bindery            26  Boot                4  Broadcast           1
Btrieve            58  Btrieve Unixware    1  Bug Fix            87
Bug Fix-Drives     11  Bug Fix-NW3.11 OS   2  Bulletin Boards     1
Capture             3  CD-Rom              5  Certified Training 31
Chat               14  Client             21  Communication      10
Compaq              7  Compaq-Lan Drivers 14  Compaq-Tape         1
Compsurf            3  Connection          5  Data Recovery       1
Database            2  Demo                4  Diagnostic         39
Disk Drivers NW     8  Disk Monitoring     3  Distr. Processing   2
Documentation      71  DOS                 5  Dos Support         4
Driver            137  Fax Servers         6  File               41
File Console        3  File Managers       3  File Ownership      1
File Transfer       2  General             9  Goof-Off           11
Groupware          20  Hard Disks Server   3  Help                2
IMSP               11  Install             9  IP                 14
LAN Schedulers      3  LAN Workshop        1  LANalyzer          11
Login              65  Logout             14  Mail               71
Management         37  Map                20  Memory              6
Menu               36  Messaging          17  Mirror              2
Misc.              46  MS Windows          3  Multimedia          5
NACS                4  NetView Support     8  NetWare 2.0a        9
NetWare 2.2         1  NetWare 3.10        2  NetWare 3.12       14
NetWare 4.0        13  NetWare 4.0 Fixes   2  NetWare 4.01        1
NetWare 4.02        1  NetWare 4.X        43  NetWare AppWare     8
NetWare CD-ROM      1  NetWare Client      1  NetWare Client SDK 74
NetWare Client-VLM  6  NetWare Connect    30  NetWare for Mac    24
NetWare HostPrint  11  NetWare HostPt/400  1  NetWare Hub         1
NetWare IPX         2  NetWare Lan Wgrp    6  NetWare LANtern     1
NetWare LAT         1  NetWare Link Serv.  1  NetWare LWP         4
Netware Mgmt Svcs  13  NetWare MHS        55  NetWare MPR        12
NetWare Name Svcs.  1  NetWare Navigator   5  NetWare NDS         1
NetWare NFS 1.2     4  Netware NLM-4.X     6  NetWare Printing    2
NetWare SAA        49  NetWare SAP         2  NetWare SFT III     2
NetWare Simulation  2  NetWare SQL         8  NetWare Telephony   2
NetWare Wan Ext     1  NetWare WorkPlace  12  Network Analyzer    2
Network Benchmarks  2  Network Diagraming  6  Network Inventory   1
Network Schedule    4  Network Versions    2  News Display        7
NIC Drivers        38  NLM                18  NLM SDK for NW4.0  30
Novell 3.11 NLM     6  Novell AppBuilder   1  Novell Dos 7       27
Novell FirstMail    1  Novell GroupWise    9  Novell ManageWise   2
Novell NLM SDK      1  Novell SFT          2  Novell UnixWare     1
NSM                 6  NW Protocol SDK     1  NWlite             19
OS/2               16  Pegasus Mail        3  Performance         1
Personal NetWare    3  Personal NW 1.0     9  Print              89
Print Servers       7  Program Schedulers  1  Programming        62
Protocol Analyzer   1  Remote             10  Security           35
Server Control      1  Server Memory       1  Server Time        12
Shell              15  Software Metering   5  Software Mgmt      11
Software Upgrading  3  Storage Management  7  Supervisor         49
Syscon              2  System Accounting   1  System Mgmt-Win     2
System Monitoring  47  System Passwords    1  System Reporting   10
Talk                6  Tape Software       2  Task Servers        3
TCP/IP              5  Trustee             3  Tutor               9
Tuxedo System       5  Unix                2  Unix Connection     2
Unix Printing       1  Unixware            7  Upgrade             5
Usage              40  User               22  User Management    19
Virus              43  Visual AppBuilder  25  VLM                 3
Vrepair             9  Windows            33  Windows Attach      1
Windows Management  2  Windows NT          3  Workstation Config  2

Total PD/Shareware files in library: 2426
Total 1.44MB disks in Library: 265
Total bytes in library:  394,495,301

A single collection is $59.50 and comes on 4 CD-ROMs. Additional
collections are $25 each or $195 for everything we make. If
available, versions that are 3 months older are $39.50/$15/$99.50,
versions which are 6 months older are $19.50/$10/$59.50, and
versions which are 9 months or more older than the current version
are $10 for CDs only (useful only to hobbyists).

Payment may be made by credit card (Discover, Visa, MasterCard,
AmEx), US$ checks drawn on US banks, or by wire transfer. Shipping
is $5 by ground UPS in the USA, $10 2nd day air, or $15 for
international air parcel post (about 7 days to most countries).

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 13:54:05 +0100
From: Bo Persson <bop@GANDALF.SE>
Subject: Re: Discport CD tower

>The manual states that the server requirements are at least 8 MB of
>RAM with an additional 1 MB for every CD-ROM *volume* mounted.  It
>would seem that combining all of your CDs into one volume would be an
>easy way to reduce your memory requirements.

I am not totally sure here, but believe that the 8 MB requirement means
that you must have a Netware server with at least 8 MB of RAM.

The software itself uses not more than a couple of MBs. Cacheing info
about the CD volumes uses another MB for every 2-3 CDs (from my
practical experience). Combining them into a single volume won't reduce
this, as it surely depends on the amount of information present, not on
the number of physical volumes.

At least on a 3.x server, CD volumes use less resources than a
disk volume of comparable size, as the CDs use 64k allocation
and do not (obviously) need any write caches.

>I have not seen any significant changes in utilization percent since
>installing this new software.

We have seen a similar result in our earlier discussions on memory
requirements. Users who access the CDs do not simultaneously
use other resources on the server.

Much of the info on the CDs are probably infrequently accessed
and does not cause much extra net traffic of server CPU resources.
If any part is actually in frequent use, it will be cached by the server
anyway (whether it's a CD or a hard disk).

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 09:44:59 EDT
From: Kacy Koelliker <TEKK@PACEVM.DAC.PACE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Discport towers

For a little bit over $2000, you could buy a 9 gig drive and some
extra ram for your netware server.  With that amount of space, you
could copy at least 14 cdroms up to this volume.  Your applications
will run more than twice as fast with half the network traffic as
the discport towers.  I am running cd-now! and discview pro on a
14 cd tower and it will NEVER compare to the speed and performance
of a hard disk based volume.  With compression enabled, I am running
15 cds on an 8 gig drive and I still have 4 gig left!

I realize that this approach will not be feasable for everyone, but
has anyone considered this route?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 23:08:25 -0400
From: Glenn Fund <gfund@HOMENET.ULTRANET.COM>
Subject: Re: DiscPort CD-ROM Tower

Before you buy, you might want to try:

Compact Devices new TopSpin.
http://www/devices.com
(800) 894-0519
$795

Concurrently supports NetWare, NFS mounts and Web Browser access and
administration. Supports up to 7 SCSI CD-ROMs which can be addressed as
subdirectories of the CD-ROM server or indidividually.  One of my tops
picks from the recent NetWorld+Interop show.  Very neat and very slick.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 10:00:05 EDT
From: Kacy Koelliker <TEKK@PACEVM.DAC.PACE.EDU>
Subject: Re: discport towers vs. netware volumes

Well, you are right that its a little bit of a pain to copy the cd up
to a volume...but if you are a little creative, you can avoid the
downtime associated with mounting and unmounting of netware volumes.

here is my strategy:
1.  create an 8 gig compressed netware volume.

2.  copy each cd into a subdirectory on this volume.
       (ncopy d:\*.* SERVER\CDVOL:CDONE /S /E)

	 SERVER\CDVOL:CDONE
	 SERVER\CDVOL:CDTWO
	 SERVER\CDVOL:CDTHREE

    and so on...

3.  make some adjustments to your applications' batch files:

before             after
---------------    --------------
@ECHO OFF          @ECHO OFF
J:                 MAP ROOT J:=SERVER\CDVOL:CDONE
LAUNCH.EXE         J:
		   LAUNCH.EXE
		   MAP DEL J:

    and so on...

4.  to update DATAONE without downtime, create a subdirectory called
    called TEMP and copy the new cd up the server.  then go into filer,
    rename DATAONE to DATAOLD and rename TEMP DATAONE.  Then deltree
    the old cd data.

Pros:
cost (microtest wanted to charge us $1000 for a jukebox driver for
      CD-NOW!)
No downtime
VERY FAST performance
less space in our server closet
(A full height hard disk is about 1/20th the volume of our 14 cd
tower)


Cons:
the time it takes to install/update the cd
maintenance of the batch files
some cds require MSCDEX.EXE, but I haven't experienced this yet


don't get me wrong,
CDROM is great for distribution of data...but, eventually there will
be a bunch of other options available to us.  For example, we use an
application called CALI (computer assisted legal instruction).  The
original distribution comes on CD and the updates are available on the
Internet.  So for us, it makes much more sense to copy this CD onto
a hard disk and update it online.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 22:17:47 -0400
From: Glenn Fund <gfund@HOMENET.ULTRANET.COM>
Subject: NetWorld+Interop Las Vegas '96 In Review

TopSpin, Compact Devices, http://www.devices.com, (800) 894-0519,
$795

Instant CD-ROM server that supports from one to seven CD-ROM drives.
Just plug TopSpin into the Ethernet network and it is ready to go.  TopSpin
simultaneously supports NetWare, NFS and Web environments.  NetWare
users see TopSpin as another server.  NFS users give TopSpin an IP
address and mount the CD-ROMs.  Web Browsers enter the IP address as
the URL or save it as a Bookmark.  CD-ROMs can be addressed
individually or as subdirectories of the CD-ROM server.  Administration
tools are provided for management via a TopSpin terminal console,
NetWare, TCP/IP or a Web Browser client.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 22:17:47 -0400
From: Glenn Fund <gfund@HOMENET.ULTRANET.COM>
Subject: NetWorld+Interop Las Vegas '96 In Review

CD Express 150CD, Micro Design International, (800) 228-0891, $20,000

From the company that brought your SCSI Express, comes the power-CD
user's dream.  The 150CD is configured with 4 drives and houses 150
unique CD platters.  A single SCSI interface is all that is required.
Supported environments include: DOS, Windows, NetWare, OS/2, UNIX,
Macintosh, Windows NT and Windows 95.

In other MDI news: In June, an NDS aware version of SCSI Express will be
released.  Centrally administer trustees and assign rights at the volume
(CD server)  or media level.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 13:27:59 -0600
From: Joe Doupnik <JRD@CC.USU.EDU>
Subject: Re: IDE CD-ROM & NetWare 3.12

>I'm in trouble. I just installed a NEC 2Vi CD-ROM drive on our NetWare
>3.12 server.
>
>The server has the following technical specs:
>1 SCSI HD
>1 SCSI tape device
>1 SCSI card, PCI using IRQ 12
>1 Accton PCI network card using IRQ 10
>
>I connected the IDE CD-ROM using the primary IDE channel, port 1f0, IRQ
>14. Drivers loaded where IDEATA.HAM dated 13.06.95, and CRDOM.NLM dated
>29.11.95. The device is recognized perfectly, and my CD mounts and
>indexes beautifully.
>
>However, the first attempt to access the volume from a workstation
>causes the whole network to collapse. No workstations are abel to access
>the server in a normal way. A login to the server takes ages, and
>rebooting a workstation makes the VLM drivers not finding the server
>anymore.
>
>Normally, I would say this was a hardware crash, but I cant find it. I
>tried different IRQ's for the PCI cards, but woth no luck.
>
>What did I do wrong?
---------
	Just taking a guess here. IDE is warmed over ST-506 where the cpu
still does all the work. CD-ROM players are slow no matter what, and if a
request is made to perform an action that takes a long time, say a seek,
then it is quite possible for the cpu to be tied up waiting for it to
complete. Naturally other things can be halted during that process by
not receiving cpu attention. Whether or not this happens depends on the
IDE devices, in detail.
	SCSI has a "SCSI bus disconnect" feature which allows devices to
say "I got the message, I'll call you back later" and free the bus for
other work. IDE was designed for DOS machines which have nothing else to
do in the meanwhile; NW servers are exactly opposite to this.
	We recommend not using IDE anything on servers. We recommend bus
master controllers to free the cpu for simultaneous work on other requests
while a current one (disk, lan adapter, etc) completes under local board
control. Please leave IDE apparatus on the secretary's desktop; the server
requires hardware competent under multitasking heavy loads to service the
user population.
	Joe D.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 10:30:43 +0100
From: Peter Scherrer <SR@ZID.ISBURG.CH>
Subject: Re: Adaptec 2742AT / CDROM.NLM (fwd)

>>I have this plan for adding 30+ CDROM drives to a NWv3.12 server.  I'm
>>wondering if anyone has good/bad/ugly experience with this.  The plan is
>>to use 3 Adaptec 2742's and add 30 CD drives (14 drives per controller
>>max) to this server and use CDROM.NLM to mount these as volumes.
>
>We have two Novell 3.12 servers each with 3 AHA2742T cards - one for
>the server disk drive and one for each stack of 7 drives ( so 14
>drives per server so far - although we plan to utilise the twin
>channel aspects of the AHA2742T cards to the full in the long term)
>We have NOT used Novell's CDROM.NLM - we have always treated it with
>grave suspicion having induced many a server crash just with one
>CD-drive running!  We invested large a large sum of money on SCSI
>Express having seen this working on our CD-Rom tower suppliers
>server. In my mind this was money well spent - it mounts/dismount CDs
>very quickly, uses minimal amounts of RAM and is totally stable
>(unlike the Novell product!) - we have never had any server crashes.
>(The two servers are available to 13000 users campus-wide, by the way)

Exactly the same situation in our campus. As long as we were using
Netware 3.1x, we couldn't bring ourselves to Novell's cdrom.nlm. It
was much to buggy and too slow. The situation changed at the end of
last year, when we decided to update all the servers to Netware 4.10.
After extensive testing, we were convinced, that the new cdrom.nlm in
Netware 4.10 does its job quite well.

Since January 96 we have Netware 4.10, and a on one server a maximum
of  3*AHA2742T and 42 CDROMs (yes, we use all of them, special brackets
to bring the second SCSI-bus out of the server are available). It
works flawlessly, mounting time is not longer than with SCSI-Express,
about 10-60 seconds for each CD. Only the first time you mount the
CD, it can take much longer (several minutes). The time is needed for
making the index file on the servers harddisk. This indexing is much
faster, if it's already on the CD as for example on the NSEPRO. On
other servers we mixed AHA2742T and AHA29?? (PCI), no problems.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 07:01:42 PDT
From: bfarrell@mindscape.com
To: netw4-l@bgu.edu
Subject: Re: IDE Mounted as a volume

>I just received a call from a fellow school admin (on the othere side
>of our province) that says he has a IDE CDROM that he cannot mount as a
>volume. ....that there is not a driver for it.  He has been told by the
>manufacturer that the driver ends with a .dsk extention (???? :) ) but
>they could not provide him with anymore info.

For IDE CD-ROM drives you'll need the latest type of Novell
drivers. Which is actually a set of two, because Novell has split
out the components of the *.DSK drivers into *.HAM (Host access
Module) and *.CDM (? Device Module - I've forgotten what the "C"
is for!) These files work with the Novell NWPA.NLM (NetWare
Peripheral Architecture) system.  All the necessary files are in
a Novell patch file named CDUP3.EXE available through Netwire,
ftp, etc. Plus there is a good readme explanation of the whole
system. - This also works under v.3.12 - It's important to note,
however that not all IDE paddleboards will necessarily work with
this. But there is an explanation of that also in the
aforementioned readme.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 13:09:38 +0200
From: Gabor Borsodi <bme.eik.thulya@groupwise.eik.bme.hu>
Subject: Modifications to FAQ

How to put the CD-ROM images on other volumes?

When loading cdrom.nlm, add the v=volname switch to it.  For example:
	load cdrom v=vol1

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 10:52:30 GMT+2
From: Willem Nieuwenhuis <WILLEM@ITCFS06.ITC.NL>
Subject: Re: NOVELL Digest - 1 May 1996

>I have a CD ROM drive running on a NetWare 3.12 server that will randomly
>dismount itself when a workstation attempts to read from it. (every
>couple of hours)  The error generated is:
>'File Read Error at offset xxxxxxxx....
>Device dismounted by driver due to device failure.'
>NLMs are current.

We use a CDROM tower of Microtest here (Netware 3.11). At one time one
of the CD's started dismounting because of drive deactivation. Because
the other CD slots did not seem to have any problems, we switched CD's.
However the same message appeared for the same CD.

We than took a look at the CD, and were stunned that it was so dirty.
After cleansing the CD the problems were over. Of course the CD itself
maybe damaged (scratches etc).

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 08:22:41 +1100
From: Richard Phillips <Richard_Phillips@MCINTOSH.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: CD-QUICKSHARE information???

>As by a coincidence i found a product from Stac, inc (www.stac.com) that's
>called CD-QUICKSHARE. This product creates a library of compressed CD-ROM
>images on the server and has control over licenses. I'd be interested in any
>experiences and comments from this product in a NetWare/Windows environment.

Download the trial software. It's the full version, only limited to
two CD images and will expire after a few weeks. I did. It worked. I
bought a copy. It works. The only drawbacks appear to be:

*Dos/Windows/Windows95 only eg not NT.
*Uses real mscdex, which takes up memory on a workstation
*CD images, although compressed, still can take up a fair bit of space
plus can take a while to create initially.

Those would appear to be the main problems I've found so far.
Personally, I can easily live with them. Accessing info from a CD
image is blazingly fast, it is easy for my people to support, disk
space is cheap and in any case I can backup the images to tape if they
aren't frequently accessed plus a lot of CDROMs have less than 100megs
of data on them so some images end up being comparatively small, and
although mscdex takes up memory on the workstation it is genuine
mscdex and so far I have not had any compatability problems and do not
expect to find any.

Using this software I do not have to maintain a special tower of CD
drives, do not have to upgrade them from double speed to quad speed to
hex speed to oct speed to who knows what speed, access speed to CD
images is pretty much the same no matter how many people are accessing
the one image at the same time, traffic on the network is kept to a
minimum as requests for data don't get duplicated on the network (as
happens with some systems), and future expansion is dead easy and
inexpensive to do.

Basically this may not suit everyone, but it's a neat solution and I
highly recommend checking it out.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 19:21:07 +0000
From: Michael Gaskin <tk421@CyberGate.COM>
To: netw4-l@bgu.edu
Subject: Re: How can I put 200 CD-ROMs on line?

>A friend has asked me the title question, how do I put 200 CD-ROMs on
>line.  I see this as an interesting question, and one that is outside
>my scope.
>
>I've been mostly considering a NetWare solution, but I am open to
>other suggestions also.
>
>Since their LAN has a 50 user license, and they only have about 30
>PC's, it seems unlikely that all of the CD-ROM's will be accessed at
>the same time.
>
>I've thought about using something like 35 Pioneer CD-ROM changers
>and an appropriate number of DiscPort's.  However, there is still the
>issue of mounting that many volumes.  How much RAM would it take?  (I
>know, your mileage may vary, it depends on the number and size of the
>CD-ROM's.... that was a rhetorical question.)
>
>In any case, I would welcome any suggestions with regard to this
>interesting little problem.

We just purchased a Procomm CD-ROM Rack. (28 cd's).  One rack can hold up
to 56 CD's. As for 200, I don't see why you could'nt purchase 4 racks.

The cost was about 30 grand for a Pentium 133 with 64mb and Netware 4.1.
Very nice setup and pretty easy to adminstrator.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 09:31:04 -0400
From: James Litchford <LITCHFOR@WOODSROGERS.COM>
Subject: Network CD servers -Reply

>I am currently using a Toshiba 8 CD-ROM tower connected to the
>file server.  I need to add at least one more CD-tower.
>Has anyone already used the Axis 950 CD server? Other products?

    We have installed the Microtest Discport Pro unit with 14 Plextor CDROMs
in a JES cabinet.  We are able to have several users access the same
CDROM with no apparent degradation.  Discport Pro also comes with a
Smartlaunch update program which allows us to add CDROM titles on the
tower and the new icons will appear on each users desktop the next time they
start Windows.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 08:47:06 +0000
From: Chet Durnal <cdurnal@STAFF.LIB.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: cdrom to disk volume

>Is there a trick to copying the contents of a cdrom to a netware
>(4.1) disk volume for access by the cdrom app software?
>
>I copied a SilverPlatter disc to a directory on a netware volume as
>a test, mapped a drive to the directory, and ran the app software
>but the software does not recognize that mapped drive as a cdrom
>volume. Is there additional software needed to make this work, or
>is this more likely a problem with this particular software package?

You need to change the spirs.cfg file. In it is a line "magdrive=0"
change that to "magdrive=1"

---------

Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 10:40:00 CDT
From: Larry Moore <lwmoore@E-TEX.COM>
Subject: Re: cdrom to disk volume

>Is there a trick to copying the contents of a cdrom to a netware
>(4.1) disk volume for access by the cdrom app software?

Did you map as search?

----------

Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 08:20:56 -0800
From: Hermelito Go <lito@MSUIIT.MSUIIT.EDU.PH>
Subject: Re: cdrom to disk volume

>Is there a trick to copying the contents of a cdrom to a netware
>(4.1) disk volume for access by the cdrom app software?

Try FAKECD it works on my site.

---------

Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:19:08 -0300
From: Brian King <kingb@IS.DAL.CA>
Subject: Re: NOVELL Digest - 9 Oct 1996

>>Is there a trick to copying the contents of a cdrom to a netware
>>(4.1) disk volume for access by the cdrom app software?
>>
>>I copied a SilverPlatter disc to a directory on a netware volume as
>>a test, mapped a drive to the directory, and ran the app software
>>but the software does not recognize that mapped drive as a cdrom
>>volume. Is there additional software needed to make this work, or
>>is this more likely a problem with this particular software package?
>
>Try FAKECD it works on my site.

Actually with silverplatter you don't need to fake CD extensions.
If you are using PC-SPIRS edit the  DBPAR  file and add the line:

MAGDRIVE=1

If you are using WinSPIRS edit the winspirs.ini file and in the [CORE]
section add the line:

MAGDRIVE=1

This tells the search software to search HD volumes as well as CDs.

In case you weren't aware, there are 2 other lists that would probably
have been more appropriate for this question.

SPIN-L          SilverPlatters Listserv
CDROMLAN        CD-ROMs in a Network Environment Listserv

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:34:16 +0100
From: Hakan_Andersson <hakana@VD.VOLVO.SE>
Subject: Re: cdrom to disk volume

>>Is there a trick to copying the contents of a cdrom to a netware
>>(4.1) disk volume for access by the cdrom app software?
>>
>>I copied a SilverPlatter disc to a directory on a netware volume
>>as a test, mapped a drive to the directory, and ran the app
>>software but the software does not recognize that mapped drive as
>>a cdrom volume. Is there additional software needed to make this
>>work, or is this more likely a problem with this particular
>>software package?
>
>I had a few CDs that would work just fine (e.g. Encarta).  But I
>think most are going to require more.
>
>What I ended up doing is checking how much room the files actually
>take up on the CD, then create a volume (named the same as the
>volume on the CD) of the appropriate size.  This solution is
>possibly not the best, particularly if you are low on drive letters
>(hopefully you don't have a whole bunch of CDs you're copying over),
>but it is what I came up with.

You could make an image of the CD and put it on the server.
Issue the commands:

CD IMAGE <filename>
CD VOLUME LIST
  - this gives you a hex image number for the imagefile
CD IMAGE MOUNT <image number>

The image will be accessed by the name you stated when creating the
image. If no name stated it will have a volume name of <image number>.
You can create these images with most CD apps. Example Easy-CD. This
is by the way how you create pre-indexed CD's (NWCDIDX.4CD (in root) +
CD IMAGE SET, and then create the CD from the image). The
CD-apps will only work if it supports traditional mounting in a
Netware server.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 08:10:07 -0800
From: Floyd Maxwell <floyd@DIRECT.CA>
Subject: Re: NW 4.11 on Prosignia

>>We recently ran into a problem installing Intranetware 4.11 on a new Compaq
>>Prosignia 300/150.  After creating the DOS partition and installing the
>>CD-ROM drivers, we proceeded to install a 250-user Intranetware.  This was
>>to be an ECORP test server for some Novell classes.  When the server began
>>the preliminary copy, it stopped when it got to CDROM.NLM with an error that
>>it couldn't read the CD.  Okay, we tried a different CD.  Still stopped in
>>the same place, swapped CD drives .. still stopped.  Just happened to have
>>another identical Prosignia, so we tried it .. still stopped!  We decided to
>>do a remote install from one of our existing 4.10 servers.  The install
>>program still crashed on CDROM.NLM.  Finally, the CNI that was helping me
>>get the classroom ready commented out the CD-ROM drivers from CONFIG.SYS and
>>AUTOEXEC.BAT.  After that, the remote install worked.
>>
>>This was a really strange problem and has us both stumped.  Any ideas?  What
>>really has me puzzled is why the CD drivers were causing the problem even
>>when we weren't using the local CD drive.  I've installed 4.10 several times
>>on these machines and haven't had a problem.  So, to anyone installing 4.11
>>on one of these machines, you've been warned!  And yes, I'm calling Compaq
>>about it right now.
>-------------
>	It's happened here, on clone machinery. The problem is there is a
>major change of control from your DOS level CD-ROM driver to the protected
>mode CD-ROM driver within NetWare. Expect all kinds of difficulties when two
>drivers try to grab one device.
>	In the 4.11 case I simply kept going with no problem. As they say,
>"carry on, regardless."
>	Joe D.

My co-worker experienced this...but had the idea of changing the config.sys
entry from

device=c:\cdrom\blah.sys /d:CDROM
			    ^^^^^
  to

device=c:\cdrom\blah.sys /d:NOTCDROM
			    ^^^^^^^^
and it breezed on through.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:51:43 CDT
From: "Dan Creagan" <dcreagan@scholars.bellevue.edu>
To: netw4-l@bgu.edu
Subject: Re: Adding CD-ROM on Netware 4.1 server

>I'm fairly new to Novell Netware networks, so this question may seem a
>silly one to ask, but I'm having a problem of having Netware 4.1
>recognize my IDE CD-ROM, whereas the installation of Netware was done
>from a CD.  My guess is that during the installation, Netware was using
>the DOS CD-ROM driver.  So, what do I need to have Netware recognize the
>CD-ROM.

Download 'CDUP4.EXE' from the novell site.  It will give you the
latest files necessary to get your CD mounted as a NetWare volume.

4.11 comes with all the files necessary and it seems to work very well.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 19:47:58 -0500
From: Slak! <jaysona@MICRO.ORG>
Subject: Re: Mac CD's & 4.1

>I am trying to mount some Mac specific CD-ROMS on my 4.1 server and they
>will not mount.  There is a special command required and I have forgotten
>what it is... The Novell Netwire page has no info and neither does CD HELP.

There are several pages of on-line help included with the cdrom.nlm.

Type 'cd help' several times, you will see that each time the command is
exectuted, you will be presented with different help options.  If memory
serves, I believe there are ten or eleven pages of help in total.

The particular syntax you require is:

cd mount {volume name or #} /mac

Executing 'cd device list' will present you with the volume name and
number of the cd's in all NetWare cd-rom devices.  'cd volume list' will
list all volumes ever mounted that have index records stored on the server.

Every now and then I have found it a good idea to re-index the file (cd
mount {volume name or #} /r), this is usually done when users start
complaning that they cannot map to the volume, or map to it, but receive
incomplete or no directory listings.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 07:00:00 GMT
From: "Forrest H. Swick" <fswick@MAIL.UNIVNORTHCO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Discport CD TOWER locks 4.1 server!

>Our 14 slot cd tower from Discport has a nasty habit of locking our
>4.1 server.  It seems that the auto-mount feature works fine, but
>dismount is lacking.  After swapping a dozen or so CD's, the CD
>directory has a dozen or folders (each one representing a CD that
>used to be inserted in the tower) that contain file names, but no
>data.  Does anyone else use a CD tower from Discport?

Discport does not remove the "index" file of the cd automatically.
You need to go into Discport and select the Tools menu.  From there
click on Delete CD-ROM volume. It works like a charm here.

You may also want to call Microtest 800-526-9675 or 602-952-6400 for
further support.  Their www address is http://www.microtest.com.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 10:26:29 -0600
From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com>
To: netw4-l@bgu.edu
Subject: MSCDEX fakeout

I've been off the net for a few days - my provider was down for
several days, and there were power outages - so I've forgotten if it
was someone on this list or another who wanted a MSCDEX fake-out
driver.

I once had a pointer to one, but am not sure if it's still active.
In any case, here is the info that I have from Michael Thomason
<mthomason@sequoia.mgc.peachnet.edu>:

"Download the file (MDICDEXT.EXT) from sequoia.mgc.peachnet.edu.

"It is located in the \archives\software\utility directory.

"Sorry, no documentation.  Just type MDICDEXT.EXE (drive letter)."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 19:01:00 -0400
From: "BURTT, PETER (AEL)" <PBURTT@GOV.NB.CA>
Subject: data archiving

<snip>

For more about DVD and especially CDs, try www.cd-info.com
and www.kodak.com/daiHome/techInfo/permanence.shtml

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 14:25:53 -0500
From: Dan Schwartz <dan@SNIP.NET>
Subject: Adding CD Rom Tower

>I need to add a CD-Rom to our Novell Server (4.1) and W95 Client Network.
>Would it be better to add to the server, or just to one of the W95 machines
>and use sharing under W95 ?
>
>How do I go about adding it to the server ? Hardware wise there is all ready
>a SCSI board in the server, but what software/configs.
>
>Any recommendations for a tower ?

	SCSI CD Towers are easy to build: The simpler you keep them, the
better they work! Personally, I like the 7 drive configuration: One cable,
one box, 1 SCSI card, 7 drives.

	Here are a few hints:

	1) Don't go overboard on 6X or 8X drives: 4X (or ~600 kilobytes/sec
sustained transfer) is about the limit you'll see on a quiet 10Base
ethernet anyway... Even 2X drives will be fine in most every case;

	2) CD changers can be a double-edged sword: If you have lots of
disks and just a couple of users, then changers are fine... Just spread out
the most commonly used disks over the changers, so that two users will not
trying to access different disks on the same mechanism;

	3) Make sure the CD drives you buy are ASPI-compliant: This way
drivers will only be a minor issue -- Or if you use an NT server then the
drivers for ASPI CD/ROM drives are integral to the OS;

	4) If you DO decide to use changers, personally I like the
Nakamichi MBR-7, since it is fully ASPI compliant. This is also private
labelled under the "Mountain" label as their CD7. You can pick up new
Nakamichi 2X MBR-7's for $100 each... That's $$14 per mounted disk!;

	[As I'm writing you, at this moment I'm putting the finishing
touches on a baby DEC Alpha Multia with NT/Server 3.51 and NT/Workstation
4.0 (dual boot) and a Mountain CD7. It's REALLY nice to plug the CD into
the SCSI port and have not only NT recognize all 7 disks in the File
Manager, but also have the first disk recognized at the ARC console!];

	5) I've never really cared for the DiskPort: For what one of these
boxes cost you can actually use a 486 or low end pentium to do the real
thing. In addition, the DiskPort uses one NetWare user license... If you're
right at the limit it can be expensive!;

	6) Check out the Classifieds -- Both the Mac as well as the PC
sections --  on America Online for deals on CD players. As of this morning,
prices at MacResQ <http://www.MacResQ.com/PartsParts/index.shtml>
(888-44-RESCUE) are running $49 for new Apple 300i+ (2X tray load) and $79
for "pull" Apple 600i (4X tray load) players: These two players are ASPI -
compliant as well;

	7) Use active terminators... This is true for any modern SCSI
chain, by the way;

	8) Contact Granite Digital <http://www.relaxtech.com/>
(510-471-6112) for nice 7 drive tower cases: They run about $200 or so.
ConStor (in City of Industry, California) is also another excellent source
for 7 drive cases. When the cases arrive, just pull out the SCSI ID
selector switches, set the jumpers from 0 to 7 on the drives themselves (to
avoid any foul-ups:), plug everything in and away you go!

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 06:17:12 -0500
From: Dan Schwartz <dan@SNIP.NET>
Subject: Couple of things...

>>I have built a server using the following components:
>>
>>Two Western Digital Enterprise 2110MB WDE2170-0007 SCSI drives
>>One Adaptec 2940 AU host adapter
>>8 x 32MB SIMM
>>Asus P/I-P65UP5 with a C-P6ND board, BIOS version 02.05
>>One 200MHz PentiumPro
>>One 3COM 3C900TP Etherlink XL board
>>An ATI Videocharger 1MB VGA board
>>
>>Problem: if the computer is warm-booted or if the reset button is pressed
>>the AHA2940 is unable to find the hard drives. The host adapter seems to be
>>correctly initialized because the "Press CTRL-A" message is displayed.
>>If on the other hand the power is circulated everything works fine.
>>
>>I made sure that one of the hard drives is LU 0, the other LU 1 and that LU
>>1, which is the last device on the SCSI chain, is terminated. The AHA2940
>>is LU 7.
>
>Today I happened to read in the (excellent) German computer magazine c't
>(March 1997, page 187ff) a review of hard drives, among them a Western
>Digital Enterprise 2GB. They had excactly the same problem as I. They
>"solved" it by disabling the drive's write cache.
>
>The reviewer used different SCSI adapters and found that the drive did not
>work reliably when connected to a Symbios Logic SYM8751SP or an Adaptec
>2940UW. No problems were reported when an Adaptec 3940UW or a NCR 8251 was
>used.

	Three things:

	The AHA-2940UW and AHA-3940UW share the same BIOS code and SCSI
command set, so I'm quite surprised that the drive would work with one and
not the other. I'm NOT surprised that the Ultra-Wide Adaptec cards can
cause trouble, as I reported here several weeks ago flakiness in my DEC
Alpha running NT/Server 3.51 when I installed an AHA-2940UW into it... And
the troubles went away when I dropped in an AHA-2040 card. [Turns out that
one needs an ARC firmware update to use the Ultra-SCSI cards...]

	Also, beware that there are two series of 2940, 2940U, 3940, and
3940U series of Adaptec SCSI adapters: The "AHA-2940" series, and the
"Power Domain-2940" series specifically for the PCI bus PowerPC Macs. Turns
out that besides the Mac cards having different firmware (to accomodate the
little endian byte order like the DEC Alpha), there are also three
resistors that have different values, so the AHA and Power Domain series
cards are not interchangeable.

	To change the write cache enable (WCE) parameter, you need to go to
drive parm page 8 and set the WCE flag. Personally, I use HDT World Control
on a Mac to handle all my heavy duty SCSI work... (Whaddya expect me to
say, I use a pee cee for those chores?! :)

	Lastly, you referred to the target ID ("TID" or "ID") as the LUN
(Logical Unit Number): These are two totally separate items. Each SCSI
target ID can support up to 8 LUN's: This is a throwback to the old days
when a SCSI drive controller was actually a card in the machine and not on
the drive itself: Each drive on a given TID could have up to 7 LUN drives
attached. For more info, please see the very good SCSI FAQ at:
<http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/scsi-faq/top.html>.

Kip Haddix then wrote:
>I am involved in building a new segment which provides access to a
>fileserver for fewer than 10 staff members. Also, access will be
>provided to 21 cdrom drives via 3 AHA1542s in the fileserver for
>(library) patrons searching databases mounted on the CDs.
>
>We are toying with cdrom.nlm and it seems to work fine. I realize that
>setup/updates/changes of cdrom vols. might prove cumbersome. But,
>technically speaking are there problems that I just haven't found yet?

	Searching relational databases on a CD is painfully slow; and/or
with flat databases and/or across multiple CD's it's a wasteland. 21 CD's *
650 MB/CD = 13.6 gigs: Drop the data onto a couple of 9 gig hard drives or
three 4.3 gig drives and the searches will be sped up by over an order of
magnitude. (I just ran into this with a 6 disk CD server at a collection
agency with US phone numbers, used for skip tracing).

	Second, the cost of the hard drive solution would probably be LESS,
because if you figure on about $200 for a SCSI 8X CD/ROM + ~$30 per bay for
a 7 drive tower, that's over $5,000 for 21 drives... 9 gig Seagate 5400 RPM
drives are about $1700 each -- Faster, and costs less, too! If you're
REALLY concerned about data integrity, you can always bring out the Write
Protect jumper to a switch (such as the obsolete Turbo switch on many
cases), set the switch and reboot.

>Secondly, (and more importantly for some here) we had planned to run a
>thin coax "backbone" between our computer room and a hub located in the
>aforementioned areas (staff and patron areas). A person in the county's
>ISS department has decided that, regardless of the situation, he wants
>to run fiber (another bright person carrying an ego-flag at taxpayer
>expense).

	Well, now you're back in the CD speed jackpot: If you're using CD
players, fiber is a waste of $$$ because you wouldn't even come close to
filling a 10Base cable. On the other hand, if you transfer the data to a
hard drive, then fiber may not be such a bad idea... Although I much prefer
100Base-TX due to it's far better industry support, more competitive
marketplace, and concomitant lower costs per node.

	Make a rough estimate of the costs of the cabling of the two
methods (fiber vs copper); and ask the guy in the county ISS department if
*HIS*  department will foot the bill for the difference... Challenge him to
put his money/his budget where his mouth is. Money talks, and [nonsense]
walks.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 11:11:07 +0100
From: Richard Letts <R.J.Letts@SALFORD.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Which Server to Buy?

>I have mounted IDE CD-ROMs as volumes.  Are there issues behind this?

No, not really. one might find performance less than expected though,
since the IDE interface is not as, erm, flexible as the SCSI interface in
a multi-user environment.

At work we only use the IDE cd-rom sparingly to mount the ROM, after which
we copy it only a 9GB hard disk, which is faster and cheaper in the
long-run.

someone else wrote:
> >We are in the process of reviewing the HP NetServer LH Pro and Compaq
> >ProLiant 2500. Any comments or suggestions about either of these
> >servers would greatly be appreciated.
>
> I personally like Compaqs more than HPs. However, as a minor note, the
> Proliant 2500 uses an IDE CD-ROM drive, and the HP uses SCSI. So, if you
> plan on mounting a CD as a volume, you may be better off with the HP. Of
> course, you could always buy a SCSI CD-ROM drive and swap it with the IDE
> one. Oh well, I'm rambling...

My favourties are the Apricot/Mitsibushi fileservers; we have a number of
the Shogun and FT4200 servers. these are truly massive beasts with
builtin UPS, security and system controllers. we only buy these for the
user's filestore. applications are served off venerable 486DX50's with
EISA busses.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 11:07:29 -0400
From: "Brien K. Meehan" <MEEHANB@DETROITEDISON.COM>
Subject: Re: The best CD-ROM approach

>When I load a research CD, the server sucks wind for about 5-10 minutes.

If "sucks wind" is an idiomatic phrase meaning "enters a period of high
utilization," contributors and followers of this group should be aware
that CDUP4 addresses that problem very nicely.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 12:04:13 -0400
From: John Rutherford <RUTHERFORD@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU>
Subject: Re: The best CD-ROM approach

We use the Microtest Discport units here. I have used them on a 3.12
system, and recently migrated them over to a 4.10 system (version 5.30a
of their software). We attach generic scsi cdrom towers to the discport
units, which can handle two banks of 7 drivers per discport.

The discports attache directly to the ethernet with 10-bast t or 10-base 2.
I have had good luck so far, the new software supports NT as well
as Netware, supports Macintosh discs, and can be managed from either
dos, win3.1x, or win95 or NT. The new version comes with weblaunching
software and browser plugins, but I have not yet experimented with
that yet.

The biggest down side I have experienced is the amount of server ram
required (though this can be reduced depending on your needs). On
a 4.10 server you need about 1MB per cdrom drive that is permanetly
mounted as a netware volume. Of course depending on usage you do not
need to keep these volumes mounted all of the time.

I would also look at the Microdesign SCSI Express products.  They recently
had a sale, and I remember you could get their 7 drive cd tower, software
and cable for under 1500.00. Their towers attach to the server scsi
interface.

If you have disk space, or not too many cdrom discs, you may also be
able to just copy the cdroms to netware volume. I do that with some
discs that are updated infrequently, and where the software permits this.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 18:19:41 -0700
From: Joe Julian <jjulian@NWLINK.COM>
Subject: Re: CDROM Deactivated by driver

>Are there any known problems or issues with Novell's CDROM.nlm?
>I commonly get "Device deactivated by driver due to device failure"
>when I mount a CD on the servers CDROM as a NW volume...

This is normal and correct. Netware deactivated the device when
changing CD's to force the driver to re-load the volume
information. If this is not done (like if you dismount a CD then
mount a different one without deactivating the device first in
monitor), Netware uses the wrong volume table for the device (*).
When you map the new disk, you will see file abcd.efg from the
first disk (though the data it reads will be from the new disk,
totally screwing things up).

(*) At least this is what happens when the CD is renamed to a
consistent volume name. As in renaming every CD to "CDROM" for
easy volume mounting.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 00:52:12 -0700
From: "Philip J. Koenig" <pjk@CRL.COM>
Subject: Re: Removing CDROM volumes from NDS?

Martin C. Mueller replied:
>>After installing NW 4.x, the volume name of the install disk (ie
>>NW_411 or somesuch) gets inserted as a volume object in NDS.  Even
>>after removing and purging the CD from the server list (and unloading
>>CDROM.NLM) the volume object remains in NDS.
>>
>>So this "phantom volume" continues to be listed as part of the server
>>in NDS, causing "not available" errors in NWadmin etc. Is it safe to
>>just delete these objects?  I rarely mount CD's but would like to
>>know if it's normal to have to manually delete the volume object
>>everytime I mount a CD and finish with it.
>
>A volume gets an NDS-object only if someone explicitly does it, eg. via
>INSTALL.NLM, option "Upgrade mounted volumes into the Directory".
>Particularily mounting a CD doesn't do it. Deleting a Volume ID is
>uncritical, only thing to remember is, that there may be pointers to it
>from within other NDS objects (print queue volumes, of course not
>applicable to a CD) or login scripts (map commands in NDS-syntax).

Fabulous, yours was the most informative answer so far.

Certainly this gets done during Netware install then, I may have not
understood the implications of the abovementioned question during
install.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 02:42:02 -0700
From: Joe Julian <jjulian@NWLINK.COM>
Subject: Re: How do you mount a cdrom?

>>CD support is a different animal on IntranetWare. Did you know you
>>could actually delete files from a CD in Intranetware?
>
>You can't delete files from a CD ROM.

You're both right. 4.11 allows you to delete files from a mounted
CD. It, of course, doesn't remove the files from the CD, it just
removes the entry in the CDROM.NLM built index. When the CD is
next mounted (if you use the /r) the deleted files will be back.

After "deleting" files from a CD, I haven't tried purging. That
might be a fun way to see if you can take down the server. Try it
at about 2:30pm on a Friday...  Everyone will love you... ;)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:24:55 -0500
From: "Wood, Steve" <swood@ROUNDYS.COM>
Subject: Re: NOVELL 411 & IDE CDROM

>I have a problem with my IDE CDROM in the SERVER 4.11.
>
>I load :
>
>    LOAD IDEATA.HAM
>    LOAD IDECD.CDM
>    LOAD CDROM
>
>SCAN FOR NEW DEVICES     after    , and LIST DEVICES no list CDROM.
>The server not recognise IDE CDROM. NOTE: CD work well on DOS

Try this in STARTUP.NCF:

LOAD IDEATA.HAM PORT=1F0 INT=E
LOAD IDEATA.HAM PORT=170 INT=F
LOAD IDECD.CDM
LOAD CDROM

If your CD-ROM is on the secondary IDE controller you
need to load the driver for both controllers.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 08:45:26 -0600
From: Brian Scott <bscott@SYSTEMA.WESTARK.EDU>
Subject: Re: Mapping under windows 95 GUI?

>Circumstances require me to have cdroms avaible everywhere on the network.
>(on demand)  The problem is: Windows based cdroms require dedicated drive
>letters or mapped under Network tools.  We are going to be installing more
>windows based cdroms,  soon we will be out of drive letters.

Test each app to see if they even need a drive letter.  Windows apps do
not normally need a drive letter, although most of the installation
programs do require it.  Attempt to install and run the app with the UNC
name

	\\server\volume\path\app.exe

and see if it works.

---------

Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 12:46:24 -0500
From: Eliot Ware <wares@TIDALWAVE.NET>
Subject: Re: Mapping under windows 95 GUI?

>>How about NAL - You could define mappings for applications so that when the
>>app was launched, the mapping would be done....quite similar in practice to
>>what you are currently doing with your DOS apps.  In addition, NAL will let
>>you put apps in the NDS so that users can be given a new app simply by
>>giving them rights.
>
>Forgot to mention that I we are running under novell 3.12.

Try LinkLaunch.  It does what you want

	http://www.on.com/ec/products/linklaun.html

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 17:50:39 -0500
From: Larry Hansford <hansford@ERINET.COM>
Subject: Re: NW4.11 with 24X CD

>I have recently installed 10 Pioneer CR503S 24X CD Rom in the NW4.11
>server as a CD-ROM server.  However, the performance of the CDs work
>like a double/quad speed only.  Does the Novell NLM support 24X CD ?
>The SCSI controller that I am using is Adaptec 3940UW, and the third
>party software in sharing the CD Rom is CDNET for Netware Ver 2.0.
>I have rang Pioneer but they don't have any driver for Netware.

Remember that the way PC's, i.e., Windows 95, Windows NT, etc., get the
24X CD-ROM is by buffering that CD-ROM to disk.  In fact, there is a
100X CD-ROM on the market that require a huge disk cache.

Netware, on the other hand, is a file and printer server.  Any caching
or buffering of the CD-ROM drive has to happen on the local PC, which is
then limited by the across-the-wire transfer time.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 20:35:51 -0500
From: Nathan Durland <ndurland@CAPITAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Sharing CD-ROM on Netware 3.12 Network

>Take your pc, put Windows 95 on it, add Microsoft's "File and printer
>sharing for Netware networks" set it to sap and authenticate to your
>novell server, then share your cd drives.  That's all there is to it.
>A 250 user server for the cost of a 95 box.
>
>>We are using Netware 3.12 network and my users ask me to study the
>>feasibility of sharing CD-ROM on the network.  We have tried
>>connecting a CD-ROM to the file server but found that it cause
>>significant problem with the file server.  Hence we would like to
>>explore our options.
>>
>>Can I make use of Windows 3.11 PC to share CD-ROM among other =
>>Netware users via IPX protocol?

At our site, punishment for such an action would be swift -- your PC
would be replaced with an 8Mhz 286 running WordPerfect 4.x for DOS on
512K of RAM, a green monochrome screen, and a keyboard with both ALT
keys broken.

Microsoft's "File and print Sharing for Netware networks" is a mistake
from the word go.  It lies to all the clients that it is a "real" novell
server (its not), and it will cause your machine to excessively
advertise its presence on the network, causing a serious performance
hit.

If you must do this (and only in a small network), install Win95 and the
client for Microsoft networks.  Tell it you want to "share my files with
others" -- this installs the "File and Print Sharing for Microsoft
networks". Still noisy, but not as bad.  Then install the Novell
client32.

The best solution, though, is to buy a 9GB SCSI drive for the server and
xcopy the CD's to it. For a kilobuck or less, you can add enough storage
to your server to hold 20 or so CD's, and the performance is MUCH
better.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 08:33:56 -0600
From: James E Borchart <James_E_Borchart@NOTES.SEAGATE.COM>
Subject: Re: CD-ROM's

>A response to your short letter regarding the CD-Rom's on a Elite
>Seagate (Sales pitch ??????) verses something like the NEC CD-Changers.

Actually I work nowhere near sales, and we can barely make elite 23's fast
enough to meet demand, so this wasn't a sales pitch, remember that I said
we bought the discport first!  I believe that Seagate is the only company
that makes hard drives with a physical size greater than 9GB.  Of course,
the opinions expressed in this message are mine and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of my employer.

>First point of view - Changers are ALWAYS slower, it's a known fact and
>is clearly stated in all sales brochures that I have looked at, if you
>compare access times to changers verses regular CD jukeboxes. Any
>changer is slower than a direct access unit. You should compare to a CD
>connected directly to a Netware server or to something like the
>CD-Servers which connect directly to the Network for user access, in
>these cases, the changer is a snail next to a jet plane.

I agree with this paragraph, but disagree with the premise.  As an
administrator I only care about end-user performance and capacity,
and I will look at them raw.  I don't care what the topology is.
I have many servers with a built-in CD-ROM and am comparing those
also.  In fact I have a server with a NEC 7 disc changer directly
connected to the server, and a hard drive is STILL much faster.

>Second point of view - Copying the Cd's to a server will definetaly
>increase access time to the data. But if you state you also use Netware
>compression on that drive, I bet your server is going mad....Compress
>Uncompress Compress Uncompress ad infinitum. What's the use in that ?
>Don't forget as well, that not all CD's will allow you to copy them to a
>server, whether it is a Seagate Elite 23 (Sales pitch or what ?????)Or
>some other.

Actually the compress/uncompress hasn't impacted performance at all, the
server is running novell DHCP, a known hog, and it is a 486/66, and we
haven't had any issue's, even though we left the compression configuration
at the default values.

>Final view - If you are already going to use a Netware server to copy
>CD's to, I would NOT use compression on that drive, no matter how strong
>the box or disks. It is faster yes than direct CD access, but at least
>don't kill your CPU and disks with totaly unnecisary Compression.

I would have assumed this also, but we have been running for months and
have never experienced this problem.  What we found is that many files
on a CD-ROM are never accessed (esp the win95 and NT workstation
distribution CD's.)  Those are the ones that are compressed.  I do not
recommend turning off compression, if you did that, then connecting
regular CD-ROM's in a jukebox configuration starts to make sense, except
for performance.

Someone else noted that they were looking at a jukebox that would hold
around 200 CD's.  One Elite 47 drive, or two Elite 23's, can probably
hold about 200 CD's for around $6000 US.

I don't see any reason for a fight on this, the statements above are
simply my experience.  If you don't like it, then don't use it.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 22:24:38 +0000
From: Randy Richardson <randy@INTER-CORPORATE.COM>
Subject: Re: CD ROM HIDEEN INDEX FILE

>Is there any solution for increasing the size of the hidden
>CD index file, i always get disk full errors when  i try to
>execute programs.. (sorry if it is obvious)

If you have been mounting a lot of CD-ROMs in the past, it is
possible for your indexes to build up and consume disk space.  Run
the following command once in a while to remove all inactive indexes:

  CD  PURGE

If you need to do this often, get Novell's CRON.NLM to do it for you
(it's very reliable, and doesn't need to be walked or fed).

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:58:04 -0700
From: SSgt Scott Jones <JONESCO@HILLWPOS.HILL.AF.MIL>
Subject: Re: CDROM Tower/Server

>I'm running 4.1 (soon to be 4.11) on a 16Mbps Token Ring network and
>I have to spend a goodly amount of money in a hurry or it will disappear
>into somebody else's budget.
>
>Does anybody have any suggestions/experience as far as CD-ROM
>servers go?  Brands I should look at, ones I should avoid...etc.

I have the extreme displeasure of supporting 9 Procom Towers using
Microtest Discview and the Discport NLM. The discview software is a
joke, and the NLM will abend a server if the server comes up or goes
down and the tower is offline. I also have a pair of Logicraft LAN-CD (all
inherited) towers, even a bigger joke. These proprietary pieces of junk
are about to become psuedo NetWare machines used to serve the CD's
only. I am looking into an Axonix CD-ROM Sharer which is a small box
jammed full of UW-SCSI hard drives. The one I'm looking at has a minimum
capacity of 48 CD's, and a 100Mbit <stress> ETHERNET <stress> port, for
less than $11,000. If you don't have a lot of CD's to put online, my
preference would be a good SCSI card in a server and a tower attached
to that using CDROM.NLM. If anyone else is using an Axonix product I
would be interested in hearing from you.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 10:15:57 -0800
From: Jeff Palmer <jpalmer@DELTANET.COM>
Subject: CD-ROM Abends

If there is a Microsoft CD with long filenames (like Office 97), it will
tend to crash the CD-ROM.NLM.  It's a bug with the long file name encoding
Microsoft does on it's CDs in the NLM.  Novell is aware of the problem but
does not yet have a fix.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:42:17 -0800
From: Randy Richardson <randy@INTER-CORPORATE.COM>
Subject: Re: cd-roms

>How would you get a server with a CD-ROM drive to work?

To support CDROMs on your server, you'll need to load CDROM.NLM,
and the latest version is available at the following URL:

	http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/patlstfind.cgi?2932066

If your CDROM reader(s) is(/are) connected to a secondary IDE
channel (SCSI is preferred), you'll probably need to load the
IDEATA.DSK driver for the secondary IDE port.

If your CDROM reader(s) is(/are) connected to an Adaptec SCSI
controller, you'll probably need to load ASPICD.DSK after loading the
SCSI disk drivers.  For other SCSI adapters, you'll have to consult
the manuals (just post another question to this list if you can't
find the information there).

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:15:04 +0100
From: Jiri Polach <sprava@JH-INST.CAS.CZ>
Subject: Re: AXIS cd-rom servers.

>Like clockwork, the two AXIS servers will lose and regain communication
>with SERVER1.  At the SERVER1 console for 6-7 minutes they will "Establish
>connection with CDSERVER1", at which point they will be "Unable to
>communicate with
>
>CDSERVER1" for 30-31 minutes.  Again, they will establish connection for
>6-7 minutes with SERVER1, and 30-31 minutes later lose connection.  This
>only occurs on SERVER1 which holds the master partition and is the
>reference time server.

This problem is  known to users as well as  to AXIS. They released
a new version of firmware (4.22  I hope)  two or  three weeks ago,
which should have  solved this problem, but they  removed it after
few hours from their FTP server  as it was shown that it contained
some bad SCSI bug. Now we  all are waiting for 4.23 version, which
should have been released (as I was ensured) in a few days ... The
"connection lost" issue iself seems to be mostly aesthetic.

------------------------------

