Lots of SCSI ?'sss

[silky]

Thanks to our Hot Deals forum I purchased a pair of SCSI WD Ultra2/Ultra 80Pin 18.3GB 10,000 RPM hard drives. I know nothing about SCSI interface and orginally bought these to resell because I thought it was a good deal on the drives. My questions are:

1) Can I use one of these drives on my Iwill 266 and what will I need to buy (cards, cables, etc.) to make this happen. Your suggestion of a good source would also be appreciated.
2) Can I set these drives on RAID array on my Iwill 266 and what will I need to purchase to do so.
3) Currently my system is running Windows 98SE will these configurations work with this operating system or would I benefit in performance going to Windows 2000.

Your help and advise will be greatly appreciated.

 

[tristramshandy]

Well, you need to purchase a scsi adapter card to run these. If you get a raid-based adapter, you can run them in a raid array.

However, it seems to me that the _80_ pin connectors are SCA -- made for hot-swapping on a big server -- and if this is true, then you're going to need to buy connector interfaces to go between a 68 pin cable and your hard drives. I have one such connector on an SCA Quantum Atlas II I bought from Buy.com and it runs fine. That said, make sure you pay for a good adapter. I got mine at scsi-cables.com.

 

[silky]

What brand of adapter card do you have?

 

[fishingeek]

Adaptek and Tekram are your best choices for cards. I went with the Tekram because they are quite a bit cheaper. They have great prices here.

 

[sitka]

the sca supplies power? Is there a PCI adapter that has sca connections (and I assume a power bus) or does a true 80 pin cableonly plug into backplanes.

 

[Trashman]

For Ultra2 you'd need to make sure that those 80-68 pin adapters are LVD compatable as well, keep that in mind when buying.

 

[bozo1]

<< Is there a PCI adapter that has sca connections (and I assume a power bus) or does a true 80 pin cableonly plug into backplanes >>



SCA is for plugging into backplanes. The SCA Connector carries power to the drive as well as SCSI ID selection, etc. I suppose there may be a converter somewhere but it will have to be 68-pin to SCA, and somehow provide power and SCSI ID selection, AND be LVD compatible.

 

[seewhy]

Another option you can use is get one of these Hot Swap HDD Enclosure. With one of these, you won't need a 80-68pin converter, and you can hot swap your HDD and take it out, carry it around easily. Plus it has fan, HDD temperature indicator and other info on LCD display. Pretty nice if you have the money.

 

[julianf]

running win98/me keep in mind NOT to include your disks in the scsi bus scan, that makes win98/me run the in 16bit mode slow slow slow... if you don't include them, they will run 32bit, and go ultraII LVD speed, approx 80mb/s 160mb/s if thats the disks and adapter you buy.
w2k does not have that problem as it is a 32bit kernel and win98/me still run on a 16bit DOS kernel...