On 25 Jun 99, at 18:33, Patrick Black wrote:

> I just purchased a used SCSI Harddrive. It's a Seagate ST12400N.
>
> I'm looking for a recommendation on the best SCSI controller for this drive;
> and more information on how to set up the SCSI as it will be teamed  up
> with 3 other IDE devices.(1 HD Primary channel--seagate; 1 PCDVD/CDROM
> Master Secondary channel;1 IDE/ATAPI Iomega Zip drive; Slave Secondary
> Channel).

  I believe the "N" indicates that this is a "narrow" (8-bit-wdie data path)
SCSI drive; it should work with virtually any SCSI-2 or newer controller.
  My preferred controller would be the Adaptec 2940 (which comes in a variety
of flavours, but the vanilla version would be sufficient...).  If that seems
a bit too expensive, my second choice is the (Diamond Multimedia?) FirePort
40, but I have an impression that they may not be on the market any more.
  I do own a couple of even cheaper SCSI controllers, but I don't recommend
them.

  Assuming that you have an available drive bay and power lead, your may
challenge is likely to be finding an IRQ for the SCSI controller to use.  In
a SCSI-only system, it would gladly use 14 or 15, but those are needed for
your IDE channels.  [It would be ideal to replace one of your IDE drives with
a SCSI device, but your budget probably won't allow that.]

  SCSI is a little bit different from interfaces you may be used to.  The
SCSI cables form a *bus*, on which each device has an "ID number"; in
general, the ordering of devices along the bus is irrelevant.  The controller
is usually device #7 and the first hard drive is usually #0.
  The bus must be "terminated" at each end.  Most SCSI devices can be
configured to provide termination, and this should be enabled if the device
is at either end of the bus.
  [A typical SCSI controller card is going to have two connectors, one for
internal devices and one for external.  When there are devices attached to
both connectors, they form a single bus and the controller is let in the
middle of the bus.]


David G

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