What SCSI CARD/Adapter Do I need???

[OmniS3Tech]

We have a Problem With Some Old Equipment We have Which uses SCSI Drive interface (From about 1985), & we are now having Hard Drive failures!! (I'm amazed they lasted this long) these Drives Were only 40meg & the Software can not format larger drives.
The manufactures have now stopped supporting the Equipment But had some Replaced the Old Drives With quantum Prodrive LPS 170S (Scsi Drives With 50 pin Connectors) Preformatted to work in the System.

Can anyone suggest a Scsi Adapter Card Which can see the Quantum 170S Drive (we want to be able to 'ghost' up new Drives) in effect Formatting them to work in the system.

Thanks in advance,

OmniS3Man

 

[ceh4702]

There might be a server forum that you can ask a question like that in. One common raid card comes to mind Promise makes raid cards. I think they have a rocket RAID controller. You have to know what type of raid bus the drives use. They had some articles on toms hardware at

http://www.tomshardware.com

about raid. If you look at the drive manufacturer's website for the drives you can figure out the bus type. Like everything else their are probably adapters for the wider raid bus if the new ones are double wide. I dont mess with raid that much myself. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[OmniS3Tech]

Sorry ceh4702, I think I've confused things.

I am not intersted in Raid, I just want to be able to connect my Quantum 170s 50 pin SCSI Drive to a desktop Pc So that, using software e.g. ghost,I can make a copy to another Quantum 170S Drive.
I Believe the Quantum 170S Drive is an old 170 meg Drive and I am unsure which SCSI adapter cards will still work with it!

thanks for your Reply


OmniS3man

 

[edfair]

Probably would try in order Adaptec 1542, 1542B, 1542C, 1542CF, 1542CP, Bustek 542, or Buslogic equivalent.
These are all ISA 16 bit cards and are out of production but can be found at liquidators or on e-bay.
Adaptec 2940 cards for PCI will probably work OK. I haven't tried all of these with the specific Quantums but those I've used with the Quantums don't require any special handling. Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Jontmke]

The newer SCSI cards are backward compatible, just like IDE. They will recognise your old drives.


JON

 

[edfair]

Jon,
There may be driver issues neither of us are aware of. Depending on what operating system is involved it is possible that even the old controllers I mentioned may be too new.
The controller may recognise that the drive is attached during a bus scan but it is possible that the drivers required to access the controller don't load into the OS.
I fight the issue regularly with Unix and PCI cards. Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[OmniS3Tech]

Thanks chaps
I was unsure if the SCSI cards were Backward compatible,
We are not worried too much with compatability,only with windows whilst we test, as once we know the disks can be seen we will do a bit for bit copy as we suspect they have beem Propritry formatted

Thank again

OmniS3Tech

 

[edfair]

With Windows , anything with 50 pin scsi should work as the hardware ID is pretty good. Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.