SCSI??

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Stoney, Sep 8, 2006.

  1. Stoney

    Stoney Megabyte Poster

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    Hello,

    I'm just reading up about ARC Path Naming conventions and stumbled across SCSI and I'm not too sure what it is. Am I right in thinking that SCSI is similar to IDE or SATA?

    Also, why would you not enable SCSI BIOS?

    Thanks,

    Paul
     
    Certifications: 25 + 50 metre front crawl
    WIP: MCSA - Exam 70-270
  2. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    SCSI is an alternate system to IDE/SATA. It has great benefits, but tends to be very expensive.

    It can have more than 2 drives on a bus (IDE is limited to 2, SATA to 1) and can be very fast. It can also talk to more devices than just drives/CDROMs. I have a SCSI scanner and also a tape backup system.

    In very high level (read expensive) servers it is the bus of choice for many reasons.

    On the SCSI BIOS question - it rather depends on context. If you don't have SCSI then don't enable it in the BIOS - but there may be other factors involved.

    Harry.
     
    Certifications: ECDL A+ Network+ i-Net+
    WIP: Server+
  3. Bluerinse
    Honorary Member

    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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  4. Stoney

    Stoney Megabyte Poster

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    Harry: Thanks for the SCSI explanation. :biggrin

    Only reason I asked about not enabling SCSI BIOS was because the Windows book says for ARC naming conventions, 'Use scsi to indicate an SCSI interface on which BIOS is not enabled. For all other adapters/disk controllers, use multi, including SCSI disk controllers with BIOS enabled.'

    I just wondered in what situation you would have a SCSI adapter and not use the BIOS?

    Pete: Thanks for the link :biggrin
     
    Certifications: 25 + 50 metre front crawl
    WIP: MCSA - Exam 70-270
  5. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Ah! It is now a bit clearer. There are, of course, some SCSI adaptors that don't have BIOSes. In addition, some older adaptors have BIOSes that can't cope with certain newer disks, so you might disable the BIOS then.

    I have to say that in all the years of running SCSI based machines I have never disabled the BIOS!

    Harry.
     
    Certifications: ECDL A+ Network+ i-Net+
    WIP: Server+
  6. Stoney

    Stoney Megabyte Poster

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    Thanks Harry, that clears that up for me! :biggrin
     
    Certifications: 25 + 50 metre front crawl
    WIP: MCSA - Exam 70-270

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