What is SCSI?
• Answer: The Small Computer System Interface is a high-speed, intelligent peripheral I/O bus with a device independent protocol. It allows different peripheral devices and hosts to be interconnected on the same bus. Depending on the type of SCSI, you may have up to 8 or 16 devices connected to the SCSI bus. The number of devices can be dramatically expanded by the use of LUNs (Logic Unit Numbers). There must be at least one initiator (usually a host) and one target (a peripheral device) on a bus. There is a large variety of peripheral devices available for SCSI, including hard disk drives, floppy drives, CDs, optical storage devices, tape drives, printers and scanners to name a few. There are many implementations of SCSI starting with SCSI-1 to SCSI-2 to SCSI-3 including, Narrow, Wide, Fast, Ultra, Ultra-2 and Ultra160 SCSI. The SCSI specifications are approved and issued by ANSI and are developed by the X3T10 SCSI Committee.
SCSI is a type of interface used for computer components such as hard drives, optical drives, scanners and tape drives. It is a competing technology to standard IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics). While the less expensive IDE technology is built into motherboards, SCSI is a technology that must be added by purchasing a SCSI controller. The SCSI card fits into an internal PCI slot. SCSI devices are then connected to this card. SCSI is a faster, more robust technology than IDE, and has traditionally been utilized in servers. Aside from speed, another great advantage over IDE is that the SCSI card can connect 15 or more devices in a daisy chain. The controller assigns each device its own SCSI ID, allowing for great flexibility towards expanding any system. SCSI devices, particularly hard drives, are designed to be used 24/7 in addressing the needs of the server market. For this reason, SCSI drives are usually made to higher standards and carry longer warranties than IDE drives of comparab
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