Barnes and Noble - literature

Excerpt: A basic principle of SCSI says that a SCSI bus requires correct electrical termination at both ends in order to function properly. Proper termination ensures that the signal travelling down the SCSI bus doesn't reflect back, a situation that cause a variety of problems including "ghosted" SCSI devices, data errors, and other anomalies. Unfortunately, termination is implemented differently from SCSI device to SCSI device (some use jumpers, some use removable terminating resistor packs, others use combinations of the two), and this can cause some headaches when configuring multiple devices on a SCSI bus. In addition, there are two types of SCSI termination: active and passive. It is important that all devices on the SCSI be configured to use the same type of termination. Of the two types, active termination is by far the better and more common choice

Windows NT Magazine Article-474 Defining the differences between IDE and SCSI

Excerpt: One of the most important decisions you must make when you configure a Windows NT system is which mass storage subsystem to use. Even if you've spent only a short time in the NT universe, you've likely heard time and time again that Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is the best choice for NT computers. However, enhanced versions of the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) specification such as EIDE/ATA-2, ATA-3, and Ultra ATA tout new and improved features that claim to give SCSI a run for its money. In addition, you can purchase these newer, faster IDE-based drives for significantly less money than comparable SCSI drives. Meanwhile at the high end, countless new SCSI specifications have arrived on the scene, promising better performance and features than previous incarnations of SCSI. To help you separate facts from marketing hype, let's explore the various flavors of both technologies and compare their features and shortcomings.

Windows NT Magazine Article-179 Fibre Channel, SCSI, and You
A preview of Fibre Channel performance

Excerpt: Today's environment demands very fast transfer of large volumes of information. No wonder the Fibre Channel (FC) and Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) storage interfaces have generated so much interest. If you compare SCSI's current high-end 40MBps data transfer rate with FC's high-end 106MBps, you might think you can realize a 265 percent improvement in performance. But is FC that much faster? The Windows NT Magazine Lab compared the two interfaces.

ZDNet Adaptec's AHA-2902 scsi Host Adapter Speeds up Your PC Peripherals

Excerpt: If you've ever had to transfer large files--or an entire hard drive--to a parallel-port-based device, then you have some idea of how long the process can take. One alternative to the bottleneck is SCSI. Unfortunately, SCSI has gotten a reputation for being expensive, finicky, and difficult to configure properly. Adaptec's AHA-2902 PCI host adapter may change your mind on all three counts. It offers entry-level SCSI performance for around $70

ZDNet - Another SCSI Step Forward

Excerpt:  Though they were created for different purposes, Adaptec's AAA-131 PCI-to-Wide UltraSCSI Array Adapter and Diamond's FirePort 40 Dual PCI Ultra/Ultra Wide SCSI Host Adapter demonstrate how far SCSI has come in terms of ease of use and performance

ZDNet - Diamond Goes SCSI

Excerpt:  Though it's better known for superfast graphics adapters and multimedia upgrade kits, Diamond Multimedia Systems wants to help eliminate your hard disk bottlenecks. To that end, it has delivered its first SCSI host adapter. Diamond's FirePort 40 PCI Ultra SCSI Host Adapter gives you a serious pipeline to SCSI peripherals for a moderate price of $199. We tested a beta version.

Toms Hardware.com - Hard Disk Guide - A good article on how a hard drive works and some information on how scsi disks work.

PC World.com - Add a Card for SCSI Peripherals - One SCSI add-in card can run virtually any combination of up to seven SCSI peripherals, including hard disks, CD-ROM drives, removable drives, tape backup devices, scanners, and more. You can hang all of these off the single "pipe" of a SCSI cable.

PC World - Installing SCSI Devices Right the First Time - Juicing up your PC_s power is easy if you know the finer points of installing a SCSI controller and its peripherals.

Windows NT Magazine Article-141 - Review of AHA-F940 AHA-F950

Windows NT Magazine Article-2513 - Review of slim scsi by Adaptec

PC Guide - Good Basic Information

Excerpt: The second-most popular hard disk interface used in PCs today is the Small Computer Systems Interface, abbreviated SCSI and pronounced "skuzzy". SCSI is a much more advanced interface than its chief competitor, IDE/ATA, and has several advantages over IDE that make it preferable for many situations, usually in higher-end machines. It is far less commonly used than IDE/ATA due to its higher cost and the fact that its advantages are not useful for the typical home or business desktop user.

Tempflex - Optimizing Ultra SCSI: Cabling Makes the Difference

Excerpt: With the ever increasing demand for high performance computing, SCSI continues to play a central role in keeping pace with emerging technology. Meeting the demands for more bandwidth at greater speeds and over longer distances presented by multitasking operating systems, high performance disk drives, and enterprise-wide environments comes Ultra SCSI. With Ultra SCSI doubling the performance standard of SCSI cabling has become increasingly important and cable transmission line characteristics an important consideration when designing a bus optimized for performance.

Tempflex - Single-Ended Ultra SCSI-Putting it to work

Excerpt: More and more systems designers are coming to realize that single-ended Ultra SCSI really can work effectively and reliably, providing a robust storage solution, if certain common-sense precautions are taken. The guidelines published in the ANSI standard (X3.277-1996) are there for a very good reason: To make it possible to reliably configure a cabled system with a variety of devices from different manufacturers, in diverse ways. This necessitated making some fairly conservative assumptions about such things as device and cable impedance, to ensure enough signal margin, given all possible variables.

scsi Trade Assoc. - Pictures of SCSI Connectors

A Universal Backplane for Ultra2 SCSI - Summary: "A printed circuit board can be manufactured that has an impedance that is similar to the differential SCSI cable impedance and that has the same ratio of differential to single-ended impedance as the SCSI cable. These boards allow full us e of Ultra2 multi-mode technology with minimal signal degradation."

Parallel SCSI Grows, Shrinks and Stays the Same - Summary: "This article deals with the present and future of parallel SCSI. It explores how parallel SCSI is shrinking in several important parameters including size and complexity. It examines how SCSI continues to grow. Finally it shows how many of the most important features have not changed thereby maintaining ease of migration and preservation of previous investment while allowing graceful and low risk change."

Ultra2 SCSI - The Evolution Continues - Summary: "This white paper defines and describes the Ultra2 SCSI physical interface an d discusses differential signaling. The advantages of the parallel SCSI interface and the evolution of parallel SCSI, including SCSI-1, Fast SCSI, Fast Wide SC SI, Ultra SCSI and Wide Ultra SCSI, are discussed."

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Last updated - 11/02/98