Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IDE to SCSI Converters?

Posted by Cliff on from the how-well-do-they-work dept.

ericdano asks: "Addonics has announced a pair of SCSI solutions, which convert common ATAPI devices and IDE hard drives to high-speed SCSI devices on all Windows, Macintosh, and Linux-based computers: the IDE-SCSI converter ($100) for hard drives and the ATAPI-SCSI converter ($110) for ATAPI-based CDRW, DVD-R/RW, DVD-ROM or CD-ROMs. The company has also announced a high-performance single-channel Ultra160 SCSI PCI host controller ($170) with 160MB/sec. data throughput. How safe are these products?"

6 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. A sensible use senario ... by Boiotos · · Score: 5, Informative
    of the ATAPI/IDE to SCSI converter might be when one a) already has a SCSI controller and b) wants to add many additional ATAPI devices to the machine. A SCSI chain can comprise many more devices than your usual 2 and 2 on an IDE controller. Furthermore, one might hope that the SCSI converter would keep the ATAPI/IDE device nicely saturated regardless of system activity. Perhaps a CD copying station would benefit from this arrangement.

    Nevertheless, when it comes to hard drives, the basic performance of the drive itself will be a limiting factor. I doubt your IDE drive will suddenly get a boost in performance, though it would be neat to see some Bonnie++ results to confirm this.

    As for the SCSI controller, does anyone have any experience with these? Its a fair bit cheaper than the equivalent Adaptec model. After putting SCSI in my Linux workstation at work, I'm hooked on it: what's not to like about cutting compile times by 50%? Maybe I could get SCSI at home if this controller is the real deal.

  2. Re:Yeah, right... by Tower · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, add that, a "Type-R" sticker, a couple pounds of vinyl tape, a glass pack muffler for your CPU fan, and I bet your computer will be faster than ever...

    --
    "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  3. As long as you pay for it with your Visa card. by Glonoinha · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two 80G IDE hard drives : $200.
    Two ATAPI-SCSI adapters : $200.
    A new SCSI controller : $170.
    Time spent telling us about it on /. : $4
    Benchmarking the upgraded system and learning you took a 9% performance hit : Priceless.

    --
    Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    1. Re:As long as you pay for it with your Visa card. by red_dragon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Learning that you paraphrased a MasterCard commercial thinking it was a Visa one: -1 D'oh!

      --
      In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
  4. Re:Curiosity. by Ashurbanipal · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I don't know where in the hell I'm going to find a case to happily hold 30hd's though.


    I've been running lots of SCSI drives under linux for a long time now. I started out with a single Adaptec SCSI controller, changed over to a pair of DPTs, then went back to Adaptec when I figured out that the Adaptec boards need lots of extra cooling. The drives have been scavenged from dumpsters of local companies; over the last eight years the insatiable corporate hunger for server disk space has driven them to denser platters, so they toss out the older 1 and 2 GB drives.

    Then a friend gave me a case of 9 GB IBM ultra-SCSI drives (new, unused) he got as a going-away prezzie when the dot-bomb he worked for collapsed. Like you, I couldn't figure out how to case 'em.

    Then I went to the local Mega-Mart (Where Shopping Is A Baffling Ordeal (tm!) ) and got some of that heavily perforated sheet metal that people pop-rivet to their screen doors to keep dogs from busting them. It comes in several patterns; if you choose carefully, you can get something that folds easily along straight lines, and has holes that line up reasonably well with hard drive mounting points.

    I use tin snips and old case screws to make what I call "drive blocks", which are seven drives sitting vertically separated by half-inch gaps. I attach old screen-door handles to the top middle, and I make power cables with one female and eight male connectors. I have a bunch of large surplus 12 vdc fans that are ganged together two fans per power connector, and I repin them from 12v to 5v and attach them so they blow through the slots in the drive blocks.

    Nowadays I am running linux soft RAID (RAID 5 across six drives with one spare, except for the boot partition which is just mirrored) on two drive blocks. I have CPU coolers on the Adaptec controllers, though, because they run so damn hot.

    Unbelievably fast disk storage, and I have all the drive LEDs hooked up so it looks really cool when you do a large file copy or an fsck. The blocks sit happily on any flat surface, with their own small AT-style power supply, connected by SCSI and a ground wire to the rest of the server.
  5. INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS!!!! by The+Iconoclast · · Score: 5, Funny
    How safe are these products?

    Be warned!!! These products are INCREDBILY DANGEROUS!!

    These converters can cause Spontaneous Incinerations, Plague, Pestilince and Famine, Birth Defects, Sour Milk, Global Thermonuclear Annihilation, Premature Baldness, Tire Sidewall Blowout, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, Acid Reflux Disease, Parachute Deployment Malfunction, O-Ring Seal Degredation, Spurious Airbag Inflation, Mass Hallucinations, Alien Invasion, Asteroid Impact, Genetic Mutations, and Loss of Balance to the Force!

    --
    Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati