Dumb Quesion #4: I have and old SCSI card from the 97...can I and should I use it with a new SCSI HD?

[aznmist]

I have and old SCSI card from the 97...can I and should I use it with a new SCSI HD?
This SCSI card is an adaptec card and came with my Caddy cd writer

It's this card AHA-2910B
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/suppdetail.html?cat=%2FProduct%2FAHA-2910B&prodkey=AHA-2910B


These are what you guys recommened:
Adaptec 19160 or 29160
Tekram CD-390U3D

What about the Tekram DC-390U2W ?

 

[Jhereg]

Can you be a bit more specific of the card and the hard drive ?

 

[MrBond]

I've seen (not sure if they're still around) adapters to go from one drive type to another.

 

[Soccerman]

well, the data transfer rate (found here) is only 10 megabytes/second, according to that document (which is hella slow, if that's the true specification, even ISA slots could handle that speed ok).

most importantly, it says it has a 50 pin internal connector, (what speeds that connector is able to use, I do not know, because I've never needed to find out).

In any case, here's a bump for your thread!

 

[SCSIRAID]

I wouldnt use it. Its an old SCSI-2 card with max xfer rate of 10MB/sec. Today a single drive has quite a bit higher data rate than that. A new Ultra 160 card would be what I would look for. Ultra 2 would be OK too.

 

[aznmist]

How much are those cards worth though..I was planing to get a Seagate Cheetah 18XL, 10,000 rpm, Ultra160 SCSI

What card do i need to run that?

 

[Jhereg]

An Ultra 160 compliant card of course ;-)

adaptec and tekram both have good Ultra 160 cards check their websites for more info

 

[bozo1]

Adaptec 19160 or 29160 or Tekram CD-390U3D.

 

[Namuna]

aznmist,

If you're looking to get an Ultra160 drive, like the Cheetah you mentioned...You'll want a Host Adapter card that'll give you peak throughput.

Pretty much got 2 choices...

- Adaptec 29160
or
- Tekram DC-390U3D

The Adaptec is the namebrand and is more expensive, the Tekram isn't as well known but it's less money and comes with all the things you need (cables etc...)

 

[Soccerman]

what would that card be useful for? CDROMs, slow hard drives, possibly DVDROMs..

new Ultra 160 drives (have a max xfer of 160 megs/second) have large onboard memory buffers (4 megs and up), and hit about the same overall transfer speed as todays high end IDE drives, due to the fact that the manufacturers use much smaller platters (I think they cut out the outer edge of the platter) to reduce access times down to bare minimum.

These drives achieve transfer rates of about 30 to 50 megs/second. SCSI allows for much higher, becuase with SCSI, you can have multiple devices on a chain without performance loss until the chain's maximum bandwidth of 160 megs/second is maxxed out..

for a U160 controller, check out this review for a comparison between the Adaptec and Tekram controllers. They are fairly expensive, but will last you a pretty long time too!

 

[sleefer]

I don't believe that the 2910 card has a BIOS, which would indicate that you would not be able to boot from it. It also would not recognize large hard disks because of this. In short no hdd support. I found this in the specs:
Device Protocol: SCSI-1, SCSI-2, Fast SCSI-2
Peripheral Support: Non-bootable
There is a thread in the hot deals forum for a promise Ultra-2 contoller for $29. It won't do U-160 though.