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OK, I read the MacWorld article,
<http://macworld.zdnet.com/1999/08/features/scsitable.html> and there's a
few points worth noting...
1) The Orange Micro cards have gotten good reviews across the board.
2) I've used two Initio cards on NT boxes - A 9520UW and a 100U2W, and
they are nice - At least on x86... Your Mac mileage may vary;
3) AdapCrap 2906 SCSI cards don't play well with Atto's cards;
4) Also, with the InepTec 2940 crap you'll be forever reflashing the
firmware... And g-d help you if you have one in a 604e Mac that you upgrade
to a G3...
5) PCI bus transactions are a BIG bottleneck, and Adaptec's wares are
notorious for clogging the bus. This can cause all hell to break loose when
you have an ethernet PCI option card and heavy packet traffic at the NIC port;
6) The MacWorld article is inaccurate when they talk about Ultra-wide SCSI
(20 mHz single ended): It's been around for about 2-3 years. U2W (40 mHz
LVD, Low Voltage Differential) is REALLY nice, because the cable lengths
can go back up to (IIRC) 15 feet. But the cables need to be twisted to make
it work right.
7) And where the hell are the Mac versions of the AdapCrap AAA-13x RAID
cards... Or are there SO many PCI bus transactions that the Mac chipset
can't handle it?
8) And while I'm exercising my sphincter at InepTec, why do they *claim*
that the less expensive AHA-2940 series SCSI cards are "different" than the
Power Domain 2940 series cards?! Is there a premium for all that firmware
development every time the MacOS farts? Initio's cards are completely
cross-platform...
Unfortunately, we in the Mac community are crippled when it comes to SCSI;
and losing the onboard SCSI has only made matters worse. SCSI (Small
Computer System Interface) is a robust method for moving a LOT of data
quickly and inexpensively.
The shame is that Mac users have been dealing with SCSI for almost 15
years, and just when we finally get the hang of it, making scanners play
nice with SyQuest & Zip drives, it (SCSI) gets Steveified for a slower
performing, less robust interface pair (IEEE-1394 & USB). About the only
thing USB is good for is mice, keyboards, and other low speed stuff.
Cheers!
Dan
At 08:59 AM 2/11/00 -0500, you wrote:
>>> Tom Roth originally wrote:
>>>
>>> Anyone have a recommendation for adding a SCSI card to one of the new
>>> SCSI-less G4s?
>>>
>>> And yes Dan, I know you hate Adaptec.
>
>I got many replies so I'm going to combine them all and reply together.
>
>-----
>
>> Nick Scalise replied:
>>
>> The Initio Miles Bluenote should work. About $80 and it's bootable. If you
>> need faster (more expensive) SCSI, Miles has that too.
>> <http://initio.com/products/9090umac.htm>
>
>I've never heard of the "Initio Miles Bluenote" SCSI card. If you
>hadn't told me I would have thought "Initio Miles Bluenote" was a jazz
>group! I'll have to look into it. Thanks Nick!
>
>> Nick further adds:
>> and Dan likes it
>
>Whew! That's a relief! ;)
>
>-----
>
>> Peter Thomas replied:
>>
>> We have had great success with the Adaptec cards here in my office.
>> We have them in just about all of our G3 and G4 machines.
>
>I've never used them in a Mac before but they are the only thing I've
>used on PCs and they've always worked fine. Never had any trouble with
>them whatsoever. Thanks Peter!
>
>-----
>
>> Tim Scoff replied:
>>
>> I have one of the Initio Miles U2W SCSI Cards and it's
>> performance is fantastic, but it doesn't like OS 9 and virtual
>> memory. With virtual memory turned off it's great.
>
>OK, I'll have to watch out for that if I get that card.
>
>> The Adaptec 2940 cards have multiple SCSI busses so you can
>> run U2W devices on one bus and a scanner on the other bus without
>> slowing down the U2W hard drive to UW speeds.
>
>We've not decided yet if we'll pull out the IDE drives and replace them
>with SCSI drives. If we do then that would be a nice feature. For now
>I just need something to connect our scanners and for that the SCSI card
>doesn't need to be super fast. I know I didn't mention that in my first
>message. Thanks Tim!
>
>-----
>
>> Daniel Schwartz replied:
>>
>> Atto makes a very nice card... It works with the non-standard PCI
>> implementation PowerPC Macs use. [They don't use BIOS, and they
>> don't use ARC.]
>
>That does sound different. I'll have to check them out too. Thanks Dan!
>
>> Just don't get me started on Ineptec... On a Mac, PC, or Alpha...
>>
>> No, the AdapCrap 3940 series is the 2 channel card.
>
>As I suspected.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Tom Roth Wake Forest University School of Medicine
> tomroth@wfubmc.edu Dept of Biomedical Communications
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: Fri Feb 11 2000 - 19:36:09 PST