2100S and AHA2940Ultra... Same Machine™

[Toolbox]

2100S and AHA2940Ultra... Same Machine™

Someone is offering me an Adaptec 2100S RAID SCSI Card for a ridiculously cheap price and I don't want to miss on the opprtunity. My problem is, the 2100S does not have a 50-Pin Internal connector - that being the case, I'll have nowhere to plug in my UltraPlex 32 and UltraPlex 40Max... I need these CD-ROM Drives.

I have them now connected to an Adaptec AHA-2940 Ultra and was wondering if I could put both these cards in the same machine.

My motherboard is an Abit KT7A and it has 6 PCI Slots. If I get this RAID Card, do you think I'll have problems? This is how I will most likely set it:

PCI Slot 1: None
PCI Slot 2: Adaptec 2100S
PCI Slot 3: None
PCI Slot 4: Adaptec 2940 Ultra
PCI Slot 5: 3Com 3C905B-TX-NM
PCI Slot 6: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

I'm going to pair the 2100S with 3 Seagate Barracuda's U160 drives - Two 18.4's for the RAID System and One 37.0GB for data, if that's even possible. I haven't read much on the 2100S yet. I'm hoping I can configure it to two drives in RAID 0 Array and one normal drive just for backups and generated data.

I have been planning to do this since May of last year... now that the card presented itself to me again, I am posting. I know I created a similar thread as this over at another board but there are now a few differences... that being, I don't want the Cheetah X15's anymore. I didn't like the noise of the active cooling that they required. The Barracuda's will be able to run, without a problem, without any active fans.

Thanks for any insight you guys can provide!

 

[Neo]

Hey toolbox,
Yes you can run 2 scsi cards in the same box no probs.
You can also buy an adaptor for it to make it a 50 pin if you wanted.

 

[Toolbox]

Thanks Neo.

I actually got a very good reply from Dimarini in the other board. He says that the card is terrible and to avoid it at all costs. I'm better off with a 29160... there's apparently better performace with that then with a SCSI RAID U160 setup. Why, is what I can't understand!

Thanks for replying though. Much appreciated!

 

[Neo]

No problem toolbox, I agree with Dimarini You are better off with the 29160 from adaptec. We have a few of them at work and have yet to have a problem
IMHO you cant go wrong with adaptec. we tried a cheapy once and went straight back to adaptec.
As for for your orginal question yes you can run 2 or more scsi cards in your system as long as you have enough irq's left.

 

[Toolbox]

The good thing now is that with a 29160, I won't need to run dual SCSI Cards. I think I saw a model of 29160 that had both a 68-Pin and 50-Pin connector. I just have to dig it up now... thanks again and take care.