Specifications

106 PCA-6180 User’s Manual
9.1 Introduction
The PCA-6180 is equipped with an Adaptec AIC-7892 single-chip
PCI-to-SCSI host adapter which provides a powerful Ultra160
multitasking interface between your computer’s PCI bus and SCSI
devices (disk drives, CD-ROM drives, scanners, tape backups,
removable media drives, etc.). Ultra160 is a new generation of SCSI
technology that expands SCSI performance from 80 MBytes/sec to
160 MBytes/sec. Up to a total of 15 SCSI devices can be connected
to the SCSI connector through the AIC-7892.
The AIC-7892 combines this Ultra160 SCSI technol-ogy with
Adaptec’s SpeedFlex™ technology. SpeedFlex allows the Adaptec
SCSI Card 29160 to be backwards compatible with previous genera-
tions of SCSI products, while allowing newer Ultra160 SCSI devices
to operate at the higher 160 MBytes/sec rate.
If you need to configure the SCSI, the onboard SCSI Select configu-
ration utility allows you to change host adapter settings without
opening the computer or handling the board. The SCSI Select utility
also contains a utility to low-level format and verifies the disk media
on your hard disk drives.
Note: If any peripheral is attached to the Ultra2 SCSI
segment and is running at SE mode, one or more
Ultra/Ultra Wide peripherals will be attached to the
Ultra2 SCSI segment and will cause the Ultra2
SCSI segment to run at speeds up to 40 MBytes/
sec instead of 80 MBytes/sec.
9.2 Understanding SCSI
SCSI (pronounced “scuzzy”) stands for Small Computer Systems
Interface. SCSI is an industry standard computer interface for con-
necting SCSI devices to a common SCSI bus.
A SCSI bus is an electrical pathway that consists of a SCSI interface
(such as the AIC-7892) installed in a computer and one or more SCSI
devices. SCSI cables are used to connect the devices to the SCSI
interface. For the SCSI bus to function properly, a unique SCSI ID