Michael:It is entirely possible to use a 16bit-to-8bit Wide-to-Narrow converter, so that you can use a Wide device on a Narrow bus. The drive should automatically negotiate Narrow when it sees that the other pins are "dead."
As for using LVD drives with a standard Fast/Narrow controller, I know that U2W works with Fast/Narrow controllers (I have that situation now in one of my older machines), but I'm not sure about U160 or U320 drives. The SCSI spec. is designed to be backwards compatible, but at some point in technology, vendors make the decision to obsolesce support for older specifications simply so as not to "carry extra baggage" in their chipsets. But I think the SCSI world still has a ways to go before they start obsolescing support for the older specifications. I feel pretty sure you'll have great success in using an LVD (U2W) drive in the Indy. Maybe you'll want to check the return policy of the vendor you purchase the drive from, to see if they'll smack you with "restocking" charges should you decide to return the drive?
Hope this is helpful! Warmest regards, Sean F. Leinen Michael Dosser wrote:
Hello dear list members, I'm successfully running Debian/GNU Linux on my SGI Indy R4600PC for nearly one year now. This machine acts as mail/web/shell (-> nethack) server for a few users and is very stable (crashed only once mostprobably because of ipv6). As the disk in this machine is quite small (2 gigabyte) I'm planning a diskupgrade.Ok, all i know is the SCSI controller supports narrow 50 pin SCSI-2 drives. Question: a) Is it possible to use 68 pin ultra SCSI drives with a 68 pin to 50 pin adapter? Like let's say the barracuda 36ES2 [0]? b) Is it possible to use lvd drives (u2w, u160, u320) with the apropriate adapter? These drives are a lot cheaper than the above. If any of these question have positive answers, what should the termination of the drive be (like now without termination?)? Thank you for your attention, mic [0] http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,508,00.html