80 to 68pin converters and performance?

[dannybin1742]

i got these atlas 10k-3 drives that are all 80pin

TY09J, Atlas 10K II, 9.2GB, Ultra160 Wide LVD SCSI-3, 10,000 RPM, 4.7 ms seek, 8 MB cache, A/V Rated, 3.5" LP, 80 pin interface - 80 to 68 pin SCA adapter included, 1-year warranty.

they all came with 80 to 68pin converters, will this cause any performance loss when hooked up to my raid card that is UW-2 (80mb/s/channel)?

i'm primarrily interested in the question of if there is any loss resulting from the pin coverter, now the drive should each do about 45-50mb/s on their own U160 channel, since they don't run any faster than the total throughput of UW-2 (80mb/s) will these drives still do roughly 40-45mb/s even in uw-2 mode?


btw these were $39 a peice and come with free pin converters and if you buy 3 or more, you get a free LSI 1channel U160 card, could not pass it up for a raid array, not at this price

 

[Zepper]

There is no performance loss because the 80-pin drives are mostly the same as 68-pin drives. The extra pins are to carry power and to bring some jumpers (drive Id, etc.) to a backplane which takes care of the settings. Apparently you bought from Hypermicro, so the adapters should be top notch. I have several SCA drives in my system including one Quantum like yours and I'm quite happy with their performance.
. But you may find that having only SCA drives on a cable can be iffy. It is recommended to have at least one normal (68-pin) drive on the cable at the end near the terminator with the TermPower jumper enabled (SCA drives usually don't have that jumper as all that stuff is handled by the backplane). It's also a good idea to set the drives for staggered startup so they don't all pull their motor startup loads simultaneoiusly.
. Check- www.scsifaq.org -for lots of useful info and links. Good luck.
..bh.

 

[GoSharks]

ive never heard of the "only sca" drives on a chain thing... my computer has 3 drive chain all with sca running u160 and it is just perfect.

 

[dannybin1742]

all the pin converters have a termination pin that can be bridged

 

[Zepper]

I had a Fujitsu that wouldn't work by itself. IAC, you can get a 68-pin LVD drive from www.centrix-intl.com for $12.+SH if yours run flaky.
My adapters don't have a TermPwr jumper - just Drive Id, Mtr , Dly, Syn and Led. Perhaps that extra jumper is why HyperMicro's adapters are so expensive (unless you get 'em free with drive). ;-) The SCA adapters I'm using now were less than $10. shipped off eBay... Granite has an adapter that has the terminator built in so you don't need a separate one, but I've never seen one with a TP (TermPower) jumper.
.bh.
:moon: