SCSI 80-pin vs. SCSI 68-pin

[Celeryman]

First of all I'll admit that I am a freakin n00b when it comes to scsi. I know some about them but not near enough. Anyway I was looking at the new Seagate 15k.3 drives and noticed that the ones at Newegg are 80-pin and most of the host adapters where 68-pin. Whats the difference? Is there a price difference (between 68 and 80 pin)? Can they be adapted without loosing signal quality? Whats the best place to buy one of these new drives? Also what cables and terminators do you recommend (good quality, not super high in price). Thanks.

 

[Ephibian]

80 pin ( also known as SCA) drives are designed to be hot-swapped. The extra pins are for hot swap support and power. You can get 68->80 adapters that will work without introducing any signal or other problems. However, they will cost at least $25-50. For home stuff, try to stick to 68 pin. Pretty much any 68 pin cable rated for LVD usage should be fine, but I'd caution against getting a massive 4' 7 device cable...coiling one of those suckers in your case is NOT pretty...

 

[bozo1]

Avoid using SCA-to-68pin adapter if you can. They've caused many people grief.

Hypermicro is a great source for all things SCSI.

 

[Peter]

... and if you visit them through www.storagereview.com, you get a free LSI U160 SCSI card (single channel, 64-bit 33 MHz PCI) with your 15k rpm drive.

The SCA connector has power, SCSI signals, and ID jumpers all on one connector, for easy drive replacement, even hot swapped. This is popular in RAID arrays and other kinds of server gear, but for a desktop machine, it just raises cost.

regards, Peter