SCSI interfaces: Trsfer speeds

[tinmanjohnny]

Have DDS dirve,Sony SDT9000. Has 50 pin connector on drive but has a 50 to 68 pin convertor on cable ribbon. Since 50 pin(SCSI 2) only supports 10MB ps transfer rates,but the 60 pin can support between 20 to 80 MBps, is it possible that I can get 80 out of it? Have not upgraded firmware yet. SCSI card supports Ultra160,have 50 and 68 pin bus connections.

[MalikTous]

50 pin (narrow) SCSI should support up to 40 and 80 Mb Ultra SCSI on devices 0 through 7 on the cable. 68 pin Wide SCSI will support up to 160, 320, and 640 Mb Enhanced Ultra Wide SCSI rates depending on the host card and device. A 50 pin device on a 68 pin adapter is still a 50 pin device and will not use Wide SCSI.

Recommendation is to use 68 pin SCSI for fastest 68 pin drives and consider the 50 pin drive a secondary drive. The bus mastering and other enhancements to SCSI will still give you a noticeable improvement over ATAPI/IDE if you set this up right.