PC Hardware

grant · Guest

I am being clobberred by a memory leak which I have traced to my
installation of ASPI, version 4.71.2. This leak consumes the nonpaged
pool (kernel) memory at a rate of 160 bytes per call, according to
poolmon.exe. This causes my system to crash after about three hours of
constant tape drive use (a high-end W2K system with 2GB of RAM, 256MB
page pool size).

I have also found a website
(<http://www.saperion.de/media/pdf/downloadCenter/dach/flyer/05_UeberSaperion/SAPERION_Compatibility_Lists.pdf>)
that indicates that this memory leak was introduced in ASPI version 4.6
and is present in 4.71, but is not present in aspi 4.5.7 (the version
they recommend). But I can't find such an old version anywhere, not
even in adaptec's "obsolete" download area.

Anyone know where ASPI 4.5.7 can be found, or have a copy available?

Eric Gisin · Guest

It is about time class-action lawsuits were launched against any product using ASPI.

"grant" <grant.gussie@copyseis.com> wrote in message
news:1131467192.827604.63490@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...

Don Matthews · Guest

Eric,

Isn't your frustration really directed only at a particular vendor's implementation of ASPI? Remember, ASPI is just an interface
specification. It's an API. The spec has been implemented by many vendors. It can be implemented by one vendor correctly, and by
another vendor incorrectly (i.e. with bugs). That does not make the API itself evil, or defective in some way.

For example, NexiTech has an implementation of ASPI that does not have this memory leak problem. It also supports physical
interfaces that are not supported by other ASPI implementations, such as iSCSI, USB/1394, etc. Customers that have legacy ASPI apps
can use a product such as this to quickly bring their software up-to-date, so to speak, because this product actually converts ASPI
requests to SPTI requests. That saves them the trouble of re-writing their applications. And this is not the only product on the
market that does it. There are others out there.

ASPI is a great interface, and is still widely used. So, when I hear people attacking the API, it seems to me what they really mean
to attack is perhaps a particular vendor's *implementation* of the API. If companies are creating and shipping software products
that intentionally use a defective ASPI layer, then they are shipping defective code, plain and simple. They should be treating it
like they would any other software bug, and should be looking for an alternate ASPI layer that works correctly. Or, they should
take the time and spend the money to re-write their apps to not use ASPI at all. Either way, don't blame ASPI ... it's just the
messenger!

Thanks,
Don

"Eric Gisin" <ericgisin@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:dkqn5j01fib@enews1.newsguy.com...

grant · Guest

I have downloaded and tested both the NexiTech evaluation copy of their
ASPI driver (from http://www.nexitech.com/site/downloads.shtml) and the
Nero ASPI driver (from http://ww2.nero.com/nero6/enu/ASPI_Driver.html).
Unfortunately neither of these worked, in the sense that I could not
simply replace the Adaptec-written file wnaspi32.dll with either of
thethird party files, and have my software run.

I have tested the Nero and Nexitech drivers with SNOOPER, an ASPI
snooper program written by Brian Sawert and distributed with his book,
"The Programmers Guide to SCSI" (http://www.sawert.com/scsi/main.html)
and with ASPI TAPE SNOOP, written by Till Toenshoff and available from
the codeguru website
(http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/W-P/system/article.php/c5657/).

The results were:
The NERO dll caused both programs to hang on start up.
When using the NexiTech dll, the SNOOPER program failed to detect any
hard drives, while ASPI TAPE SNOOP could detect the tape drives, but
was unable to read them.

To be fair to Nero and NexiTech, they never claimed that their dlls
will work in this manner. In fact, Nero specifically states that their
dll can not be used with any programs other than their own. So I have
deleted it. The NexiTech dll is intended to be used by software
developers in writing their own software, and on purchase they provide
software coding examples of its use. But it is apparently sufficiently
different from Adaptec's ASPI that software written and tested for the
Adaptec dll will not work with the NexiTech dll without modification. I
am however still investigating what those modifications are, and so am
still evaluating the NexiTech dll as a possible solution.

As far as Adaptec goes, their current version of ASPI is now three
years old, which is a long time to leave leaky software in circulation.
I can only conclude they aren't too serious about supporting ASPI.

I agree that ASPI as a technology, while not a bad idea in theory, is a
failure in practice.

But I am stuck with it so am still looking for a solution.

Folkert Rienstra · Guest

It came with Seatools Enterprise once. May still do.

"grant" <grant.gussie@copyseis.com> wrote in message news:1131467192.827604.63490@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com

tuatara · Guest

On 8 Nov 2005 08:26:32 -0800, "grant" <grant.gussie@copyseis.com>
wrote:

	PC Hardware Forum Index -> SCSI	All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1