How to connect SCSI HDD to home PC?

How do you conect a SCSI hard disk to a normal
( Asus P4 2.4 Ghz - 1 Gb DDR ) home PC ? Is there
any real advantage in using SCSI instead of the
normal IDE?
Do I have to get some special interface card and
is it expensive?
The drive was received as a gift and is a Seagate
Cheetah 10 K-rpm 37Gb.
Any advise is very appreciated as I don't know much
about computers ......
TIA

 

Adaptec SCSI controller. They are not too expensive, but not cheap.

SCSI is faster than IDE.
Wide SCSI controllers can drive upto 15 hard disks per SCSI channel.
SCSI hard disks can work at the same time. IDE work in a master-slave relation per SCSI
channel
SCSI easily supports RAID 5, at best you can do RAID 0/1 with IDE

http://www.adaptec.com/


--
Dave




|
| How do you conect a SCSI hard disk to a normal
| ( Asus P4 2.4 Ghz - 1 Gb DDR ) home PC ? Is there
| any real advantage in using SCSI instead of the
| normal IDE?
| Do I have to get some special interface card and
| is it expensive?
| The drive was received as a gift and is a Seagate
| Cheetah 10 K-rpm 37Gb.
| Any advise is very appreciated as I don't know much
| about computers ......
| TIA
|

 

You'll need a SCSI controller card - those tend to be relatively
expensive by home PC standards these days.

That drive will be faster than most IDE/SATA drives (faster spindle
speed, probably lower seek time), however there are some that come close
like the Western Digital Raptor drives. As far as the interface itself,
at least with a single drive the performance benefit from SCSI over SATA
would be negligible (the only area where it would be better is that it
has command queueing, however this generally only makes a difference in
server-type multitasking environments and some SATA setups now have this
as well).

 

Get a cheap scsi controller on ebay The adaptec 2940 are a dime a dozen.

Scsi is
- faster (up to 15,000 RPM)
- lower access times (down to 3.4 msec)
- generally longer warranty/more reliable (1.2 millions hours average
between failures)
- has smart controller cards. Controller cards with 256MB RAM buffers are
common
- has TCQ (tagged command queueing). The drive reorders requests to speed
things up, though sata is getting something similar.
- can daisy chain many drives
- can easily have external drives.

gtoomey

 

The AHA-2940 is a 8 bit narrow SCSI controller.

This Seagate Cheetah is a Ulta320 wide SCSI controller.
http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,541,00.html

Even with a AHA-2940U2W SCSI controller, the 80Mb/s transfer ratye doesn't come close to the
drives 320Mb/s capability.

I would suggest at the load end a 29160 SCSI card (Ultra160, wide SCSI)
on the high end that matches the hard disk, 29320A SCSI card (Ultra320, wide SCSI)

--
Dave




| Zul wrote:
|
| >
| > How do you conect a SCSI hard disk to a normal
| > ( Asus P4 2.4 Ghz - 1 Gb DDR ) home PC ? Is there
| > any real advantage in using SCSI instead of the
| > normal IDE?
| > Do I have to get some special interface card and
| > is it expensive?
| > The drive was received as a gift and is a Seagate
| > Cheetah 10 K-rpm 37Gb.
| > Any advise is very appreciated as I don't know much
| > about computers ......
| > TIA
|
| Get a cheap scsi controller on ebay The adaptec 2940 are a dime a dozen.
|
| Scsi is
| - faster (up to 15,000 RPM)
| - lower access times (down to 3.4 msec)
| - generally longer warranty/more reliable (1.2 millions hours average
| between failures)
| - has smart controller cards. Controller cards with 256MB RAM buffers are
| common
| - has TCQ (tagged command queueing). The drive reorders requests to speed
| things up, though sata is getting something similar.
| - can daisy chain many drives
| - can easily have external drives.
|
| gtoomey

 

The example drive above has a sustained transfer rate of
38MB to 68MB/sec (transfer speed varies with position of
data on the disk).

The typical PCI bus limit of 100-110MB/sec on a desktop
motherboard will limit the transfer rate of faster
controller cards. If you have a good server motherboard,
then they usually have faster bus options.

Here is pretty cheap card, but it has got to be cheap
for a reason. It is a 64 bit PCI card, and claims to
be backward compatible with 32 bit PCI. I hope that
is true. The customer reviews claim the product plugs
into WinXP, so there must be drivers for it ? This
product only seems to be offered in OEM form (a bare
card), so don't expect a driver disk. $31 .

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=16-118-009&DEPA=0

I think the LSIU160 is powered by a Symbios 53C1010 chip.
The product blurb is here. The LSIU160 card uses one
half of this chip, and the other channel is not wired up.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000309...MARKETING_DOCS/mktgio_standard/sym53c1010.pdf

The LSIU160 card looks similar to this SYM21040 card, only
the components on the right hand side of the card are not
populated:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010331...ing_docs/storage_stand_prod/habs/sym21040.pdf

Compare to the picture of the LSIU160 on the Newegg page:
http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/16-118-009-03.JPG

Now all you need is a cheap ribbon cable. This is an example
of an expensive source of SCSI accessories. Use this site
to give you some ideas.

http://granitedigital.com/catalog/indx_scsi.htm

This page has cables. Their cheapest internal cable is $63!
http://granitedigital.com/catalog/pg06_incable.htm

Perhaps the #3450 terminator from this page ($39.95) would work.
http://granitedigital.com/catalog/pg05_terminators.htm

Chances are, you could buy an IDE drive, for the price of
even the cheapest SCSI support components.

Be aware that some SCSI drives are noisy buggers. IBM made
some drives that do a diagnostic every 60 or 70 seconds, and
there is a burst of head activity that will wake the dead.
I hope your Seagate does not share that "feature".

The drive you have been given, is not a "cheap gift". If
it was given with a controller card, cable, terminator,
drivers diskette, then it is a gift. This is a lot like
being given the steering wheel of a Cadillac, and then
having to buy the rest of the parts needed to make a
car

HTH,
Paul