Subject: Re: EIDE -> SCSI adapter
To: Erik E. Fair <fair@clock.org>
From: John F. Woods <jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com>
List: current-users
Date: 05/17/1997 09:03:18
> I have been watching the prices in the EIDE market drop, and today's
> announcement from IBM about two new drives for laptoys (4GB and 5GB) for
> about $0.11 per megabyte (list!) makes me wonder: how hard would it be to
> make an EIDE -> SCSI adapter (similar to the Emulex MD21 thingy that Sun
> used to use to make ESDI look like SCSI), and does one exist for sale now?

Apparantly both Apple and Alliance Peripheral Systems manufacture just such
a device so they can still offer Powerbook SCSI upgrades even though there
are *no* 2.5" scsi drives in production anymore.  Reportedly they are able
to get hundreds of KBytes/sec. throughput using the adapters!  Whee!

> Or is there no point to such a beast?

That depends on how patient you are, I guess. ;-)
(It surprises me that the adapters are that slow, since I'm sure I saw equal
or better throughput with the old S[AC]SI-to-ST506 adapters, but the new
adapters are probably as cheap as absolutely possible, which certainly didn't
describe the old OMTI-20...)