SCSI Help needed (My knowledge is Fuzzy)

[LCISTech]

My cousin gave me a SCSI hard drive the other day because I said I had a SCSI card at home.

What he gave me was an IBM Ultrastar 2ES 68-pin SCSI-3 wide hard drive.

What I have is an Adaptec 1542-CF ISA (I still works!) SCSI card.... Even I know that this will not work out of the box.... but can it?

I went to Adaptec's web site. They appear to have adapters that go from 50-pin (on the HD) to 68-pin (on the cable). But this is the opposite of what I want. Can I do it?

Or would I be better off getting another SCSI adapter card (the cheaper in price, the better).

 

[mastertech01]

I would buy a cheap UW SCSI card off the for sale forum. They are running about 25-35 dollars and will work in your PCI slot, have no need for jumpers, no adaptors, and give you full performance.

 

[LCISTech]

I'll keep that in mind....

But in the meantime, I found a local store that will sell me a StarTech 68-pin Male (HD) to 50-pin Male (ribbon) adapter for only $20. This way I can still use my Full Height SCSI1 drives!!

 

[mastertech01]

Well a good UW card will support both 50 and 68 pin drives..

 

[Lorne]

The SCSI1 will choke the speed of the Ultrastar even using the ISA card but it would be a better idea getting a nice PCI controller and dumping the SCSI1 completely unless you are looking at storage only then save the money and stay with the ISA.

 

[DaiShan]

yeah that scsi 3 is really being limited by the ISA bus, your present hard drives offer no benefit over IDE, so if you can I would suggest purchasing an ultra 3 card for a pci slot (if not you can make the hdd work with this card)

 

[mastertech01]

I use 3 SCSI controllers in my system to preserve integrety of the interfaces.

 

[LCISTech]

Well, I'm just a cheap SOB... The Free-er, the better.

Time to rebuild the Mandrake Server. It's only a P100 System with 80MB RAM, Monochrome video, one IDE drive and now 1 SCSI drive. Gotta justify have the computer

 

[DaiShan]

<< I use 3 SCSI controllers in my system to preserve integrety of the interfaces. >>

Do you have any links on this subject? it intrigues me, how you did this and what kind of gains you get, I have never heard of it before, any links/info I would greatly appreciate!

 

[mastertech01]

My situation is unique. I have a Dual Channel Raid controller for my X15s, so naturally it is a separate domain, then I have my 29160 for my spare storage drives, and to run my 50 pin Ultra SCSI CDROMS. Then I have a standard 10/20MBPS SCSI controller for slow devices like my Jazz drive, Scanner, and external ZIP drive, all of which are external. Because the high performance cards have no 50 pin external connection or 25 pin I need the third card.

 

[DaiShan]

I get it now, thanks for the info! Nice rig you have too btw