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This is "blast from the past" type question.

I need to make a backup of data stored on SCSI disk used in a large industrial machine.

That machine takes SCSI Ultra320 drives like Cheetah 10K.7 ST336807LC.

This drive has 80-pin SCA-2 connector and this is where my trouble starts. I don't have the controller and the cable yet and I need to know what to buy exactly and how to connect it all to the drive. I would appreciate a piece of advice there. Apart from an hour of googling, I'm not really familiar with SCSI, so I need to know this:

Most refurbished Ultra320 controllers that are available appear to have 68-pin external VHDCI connectors or what seems to my untrained eye like internal wide 68-pin connectors.

I could not find any pluggable controllers that would have 80-pin SCA-2 connectors available. So I need to know if I can somehow connect that specific disk via an interposer like this to such a controller? Will 68-pin cable connected via interposer have proper electrical and other properties so that I don't damage either device?

UPDATE

Sorry, I did not specify explicitly that the machine takes only SCA-2 drives.

LetMeSOThat4U
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2 Answers2

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The interposer may work. The SCA connector is power + SCSI.

Does the backplane on the industrial machine have an SCA connector?

The SCA connection is intended for a hot-swap disk backplane on a server.

ewwhite
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  • Sounds like it. The Cheetah LC drives were 80 pin SCA. These adapters had a reputation for being a bit unreliable though, so I'd consider it OK for data recovery (if it worked at all) but I wouldn't just put it in production. – Michael Hampton Feb 25 '21 at 19:00
  • "Does the backplane on the industrial machine have an SCA connector?" - yes, that's the problem. Had it been VHDCI or Wide I would not have been asking this question. – LetMeSOThat4U Feb 26 '21 at 09:55
  • @MichaelHampton: "(if it worked at all) but I wouldn't just put it in production." - well I do not have the choice in the matter. That machine takes *only* SCA-2 drives. – LetMeSOThat4U Feb 26 '21 at 09:56
  • @LetMeSOThat4U Contact the manufacturer of the industrial equipment for guidance. Perhaps there's even a better or sanctioned method of taking a backup of the data. – ewwhite Feb 26 '21 at 13:20
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    @LetMeSOThat4U As far as I know from reading this and your other questions, data recovery is what you seem to be doing. – Michael Hampton Feb 26 '21 at 14:13
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Looks like that might work. If it's not exactly right, it might work, just a bit slower. Remember you might need terminators on your cable, depending on what kind you get. Can you drive to your local PC recycling plant, or rubbish dump, and get one there maybe? (I just chucked dozens of those out last week...) - datacenters would have heaps too, and they're inside most old servers (just "borrow" one from another machine perhaps?)

cnd
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