SCSI Drive Mixup

So I've got about 6 or 7 large 'ol SCSI drives my dad picked up at work... They were throwing them out, so I figured I'd try to make em work..

I have one installed in my system already, however instead of using the native connector, I have an adapter that converts it to Ultra160 (I THINK?), which then goes to my SCSI card (which is very crappy. My SCSI has slower bandwidth than my regular old 7200RPM ATA... And my SCSI is 10k RPMs... Weak card!).


Little Spec Sheet... Notice "Ultra 2" (along with SCSI/SCA2/LVD)


A fairly blurry picture of the connector... Sorry.

So, I was wondering what kind of controller card I would have to use with this? I know that the connector has built-in power, which means the Card would have to power it (my aformentioned adapter takes a molex connection as well.. I can post a Pic if you like).

So would This Card function well? And would this be faster than my ATA (I really want to put it to shame! Hah!) Is there also another cheaper option? I've seen 15 dollar cards after searching for Ultra2 on Pricewatch.. They don't look like they have the right connector, however.

Thanks guys!

What you need to get those drives running are SCA adapters(1 per drive, converts from 80 pin SCA to 68 pin LVD and provides power and configuration jumpers, sounds like you have the right kind), a terminated cable and a controller card. The drives are Ultra2 SCSI and have an 80MB/s interface. They are older, but give decent performance. It will most probably be about the same performance as a conventional IDE chain, slightly better due to the lower seeks of the 10K RPM drives. You could use that card, but you can get a single channel U160 card that will enable later drives to have access to a faster bus and be backwards compatible for 40-50(I've used the LSIU160 without issues). Cable and termination should be U160 or U320 in either event to allow for use of more current drives. Get extra connectors on the cable, their presence doesn't cause any problems and gives room to expand if necessary.

Which card and cable/terminator are you currently using?

Oops, Double post... See last one.

I'm using an Adaptec AHA-2940 PCI Card... I actually got it by trading one of the drives for it, so it is old and probably slow... So a cheapy LSI card would boost my SCSI performance?

I also bought an active terminator for the chain, purchased from Sidewinder Computers a little bit ago (Link to it).

A 2940 should only max at 40mb/s. Its doubtful the drive would come close to even sustaining that, but it may bottleneck your bursts and raid performance if you chose to build one.

From the terminator(50 pin), I can tell you're using the narrow interface. That will limit you to fast SCSI-2, not wide. The net result is 20MB/s max on the interface and will be a major bottleneck. To get better performance, you need to get onto an LVD/SE(68 pin) chain. Depending on which SCA adapter you have(some have both 50 and 68 pins, some don't), you may need an adapter as well as cable/terminator and controller.

FYI

Be aware as well that when you use those SCA adapters you should not use more than two SCSI per chain.