Scsii to USB or Firewire

[kenmo]

Anyone know of an adapter that allows you to hook up a scsii hard drive to an usb port or firewire?

Thanks kindly....

[craigarta]

There are these


http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/index/Adaptec_USB2Xchange.htm

[jman98]

I'm amazed that such a device exists, but I'd advise paying very careful attention to that review on the website prior to buying. Caveat emptor.

[zzyzzx]

Sounds like the type of thing that dealextreme would have (except I'm not sure about SCSI, but that would have ATA and SATA).

[orsetto]

There are adapters you can buy, but they are very sensitive to operating platforms and system versions. On the Mac, USB to SCSI converters don't work at all with OSX, but they do on the long-obsolete OS9. On Windows, the USB to SCSI converters work OK on XP but not on Vista (the usual "nothing works on Vista" answer).

I have a couple of excellent but outdated film scanners that I bought used for pennies on the dollar, they originally sold for thousands and I looked for ways to make them work (I have lots of film to scan). After a lot of research, I came away with the info that the ONLY well-supported, cross-platform solution is the RATOC FR1SX SCSI to Firewire (IEEE1394) converter. This works perfectly for me under both Mac OSX and Windows XP, supposedly its supported under Vista but I haven't been in a mood to try yet. The converter itself is a small pod about 3 x3 inches, by the time you add various cables and plugs to get everything connected it sticks out a far bit from your SCSI device. But it does work as advertised and RATOC seems to stand behind it- I've had mine for a year and have seen them post driver updates. Depending on whether your SCSI device is a scanner or hard drive you need to make a couple of firmware adjustments using the provided software. Also, there are some scanners and optical drives that are so old or peculiar they can't be adapted. Check the RATOC website for complete details, or download the manual. It sells for $90-150 depending on used or new, eBay or direct from RATOC. Note the RATOC has a male SCSI-II socket so you might need to also buy a M-F adapter cable or plug.