I feel *really* stupid! SCSI drive hookup help

[witold]

This is to be the first machine I will actually built. I decided to built it after winning the AMD motherboard+chip giveaway.

My biggest problem (at the moment) is the SCSI drive hookup.

First of all, I didn't know you needed a SCSI card to hook up a SCSI drive. (stupid me... go ahread and laugh). So... after buying a 9GB Seagate Cheetah 18LP FC, (ST39103FC) I went out and bought a "Iwill Ultra Wide SCSI Adapter / Controller", (2936UW-E) thinking that it would solve all my problems problem. Somewhere along the line, I also got a Seagate Barracuda 18.2GB 7200 RPM 80 PIN (ST118273WC)

And guess what? The card cable for one drive is too big, too small for the other.

What do I need to do? Get some kind of adaptors/cables?

Lastly, I really am on a limited budget here, so please suggest solutions that take full advantage of the drives, but are gentle on my wallet

Witold

PS My ideal setup would be to boot to the 9GB 10K RPM drive, and use the other for storage...

 

[foofoo]

i think that this is going to be a rough one.
the fc at the end of your 9gb cheetah 18lp usually means that it's fiber channel interface, though i cant find the model that you call out on the seagate web pages as a fiber chanel device. where did you get it? could it be a special oem one?
your scsi card has a 68 pin internal standard scsi interface and comes with the correct cable if you bought the retail box version
as for the Seagate Barracuda 18.2GB 7200 RPM 80 PIN (ST118273WC), this may be the wall connector version. does it have a separate power connector? if not you will need an adapter to use it.
it sounds like you may have bought incompatible components. can you return the 9gh scsi drive and get one that is standard scsi3 68 pin? this would allow you to use your 9gb drive as boot. i dont know about adapters for the 18gb disk, depending on if it actually has the separate power connector you will need one. it would be easier to replace that one too with a 68 pin lvd scsi3 connector drive.
sorry i cant be more upbeat. anyone else got any ideas?

 

[bozo1]

Witold - the ST39103FC is a Fibre Channel drive. Ain't gonna work. The new drive has an SCA connector. You'll need to get an adapter for it like this.

 

[witold]

Both drives are OEM, so they came with no cables. The 9GB one can be found here: http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/fc/st39103fc.html The card is retail box, and came with a 50pin and 68pin cable. Neither cable plugs into the drives, as the 9GB drive is apparently 40pin, and the 18GB drive is 80 pin I don't have the 18GB drive in front of me, but I don't remember seeing a separate power connector.... )

Talk about some bad choices.. .hehehe... dang....

This is one expensive lesson. (too late to return the drives)

One question, though... What does "Fibre Channel" mean and what are those drives used for?

Witold

 

[bozo1]

The 18GB drive does not have a powerconnector. It has an SCA interface which is used for hotswapping in file servers or external drive arrays. The SCSI ID setting and power is supplied via that 80-pin connector. There really is no cable for it, it just plugs into an SCA chassis. To use it in your system, you will have to get an adapter like the one I linked to. The adapter plugs into the SCA connector. On the back of the adapter, you plug in a power cable and a regular 68-pin wide SCSI cable. You also set your SCSI ID on the adapter.

Fibre channel is used to connect external drive arrays to a file server, mainframe, etc. It doesn't have the cable length limitations of SCSI so is quite popular in disk farms.



Here is more info on Fibre Channel.