From: manaster@yu1.yu.edu (Chaim Manaster)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: SCSI compatibility on EISA: Recommendations
Keywords: Adaptec BusLogic Ultrastor Corel Pioneer Exabyte Micropolis Seagate
Date: 3 Jan 93 06:10:40 GMT
Followup-To: comp.periphs.scsi
Organization: Yeshiva University


I intend to add an Exabyte tape drive (EXB-8205), Pioneer cdrom drive (DRM-604X)and a Toshiba (MK538FB) or a Fujitsu (M2266S) 1Gig + hard drive to my system.


My system now consists of an AMI Eenterprise II motherboard, with a 486/33DX
CPU and a Western Digital 1009 ESDI controller and an ATI Wonder + video card 
and a Dunord scanner interface card along with 16M of RAM.

I would appreciate recommendations and advice concerning my choice of the above
SCSI devices, your experiences with them, both good and bad, difficulty to
install them in your system (please clarify if EISA ot not), and compatibility
problems if any. A run down of the installation procedure and a check list of
things to look out for would be most appreciated.

Equally important will be my choice of SCSI adaptor boards. I need to choose
between the following three: Adaptec 1742, Ultrastor 24F, and the Buslogic ???,
(I don't know their EISA SCSI model No.). My prime concerns are:
COMPATIBILITY, availability of DEVICE DRIVERS for the above peripherals, 
support of SCSI II and FAST SCSI and of course reliability and ease of
installation. I am a novice with respect to SCSI so I need all the help I
can get.

I will need to obtain device drivers for the above devices, anyone know of any
that will support any of these boards. Unfortunately, Corel SCSI has not yet
been tested with the EISA version SCSI boards, thus Corel tech support
could (would) not guaranty compatibility (although for example the ISA
Adaptec 1542B has been tested OK). It might help to know if these boards are 
fully ASPI compatible and if that guaranties that the Corel drivers will work.
Does anyone out there have any experience with the Corel SCSI drivers and are
they appropriate for EISA SCSI boards or only the 8 bit cards they were
originally written for??

It occurs to me that the DOS solution might not be valid for OS/2 or UNIX.
Any comments in this regard? At the moment My work is done in DOS/WINDOWS,
howvever, I am testing a small OS/2 partition and will consider UNIX and
NT in the near future, but at the moment, my main concern is the DOS/WINDOWS
world that I currently exist in (with an eye on the future).

Consider EMail for your response and I will summarize and post.
Thank you in advance for your help and advice.

****************************************************************************

I now know the model no's for the Buslogic EISA SCSI adapterboards, that I
 didn't know when I posted the above, they are:

	742A (5Meg max.)
	747S (10Meg max.) (I'm more interested in the faster of the two).

Furthermore it has come to my attention that Micropolis has a SCSI II FAST
3 1/2" half high drive model # 2112 and Seagate has a similar drive model
# ST11200N.  Both are apparently 5400 rpm drives (fast) that are about one Gig
when formatted.  The Toshiba is slightly slower at 4400 rpm. The Fujitsu is
full hight 5 1/4" drive and standard 3600 rpm. All have a five year warranty ;-)

My current inclination (definitely not cast in concrete) is to go with the
Buslogic 747S since the Adaptec EISA card is having problems with Corel SCSI
drivers for some reason; to get the Micropolis #2112 (slightly better price);  
the Pioneer DRM 604X and Exabyte 8205 (unless someone had problems with them).
Would these make a compatible and user friendly group of peripherals on SCSI?


If you have any comments to my original posting or additional options I would appreciate hearing them.

Thanks for the help.

*****************************************************************************

This posting went out several days ago and I assume (I'm new to Usenet) that 
the response is slow because of the holiday period. I am not sure how long the 
postings are kept on Usenet so in order to get some wider response I am posting this once again. Sorry, if you have already seen this.

Response particularly apreciated if your at Corel, Adaptec, Buslogic, Ultrastor
or have particular familiarity with these or information about the nature of theCorel/Adaptec 1742 problems. More general comments are welcome as well.

Thanks again for the help.



-- 
***************************************************************************
	Henry Manaster          *     EMail: manaster@yu1.yu.edu
	Brooklyn, NY            *
                                *
	Disclaimer: The above is not necessarily MY opinion nor that 
				of anyone else :-)  ????!
****************************************************************************
 
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi