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Offline CrackpotTopic starter

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Expensive Adapters
« on: December 18, 2020, 07:45:29 AM »
Yeah, it's Xmas (Have a good one!) - but the Scrooge in me wants to have a qwik moan. To whit:

Re. 68 pin Acard ARS-2160 Ultra160 SCSI to SATA II Adapter for 2.5" SATA HDD

Why are these devices SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO expensive!

https://www.ebay.com/p/2254359748?iid=263397949700

(There is an Ultra 320 version of this too, for around the same price.)

Bought two of these adapters for our Amiga 3000 w/CyberstormPPC some years ago on Ebay:

First one - $US295 - 1/11/2014

Second one - $US320 - 15/04/2017

The price of the second had risen, but not by much.

Now, on 18/12/2020 they want $US2000 for one! Yikes! What is going on with that? In terms of scale, even luxury cars don't rise in price by THAT much - especially with the (relatively) low inflation rates nowadays. This price rise defies gravity - even the Laws of Physics themselves.

Can't believe they are so costly now - and the price went up suddenly not long after I bought that second one. (Was it me? Always suspected there were 'evil forces' plotting against my retirement Amiga 3000 project.) Thought the cost was high when I bought in - the cautious Scotsman in me dithered for weeks about forking out - but certainly could not afford one now. Damn shame because they are excellent for attaching SSDs to a CyberstormPPC's SCSI bus. They just WORK! And Faaaaaaaaaaaaaast! Just having a working modern SSD drive on an Amiga speeds it up by default - never mind having to tweak it.

Would consider another one if the price would go back to where it was - at least. If there is anyone out there who has the nous to manufacture these adapters at an affordable price, I'd buy another one.

For CyberstormPPC set-ups - or any accelerator with Ultra 160 SCSI - they are also great for testing purposes when sitting outside the case on a longer SCSI cable. You can simply power down and swap out drives - not plug an' play unfortunately - but almost, because the machine boots back up so (relatively) fast from them it isn't that much of a hassle. Nifty way to try out, say, several builds of an OS on cheap, small SSDs for eg. without having to swap masses of files around, till you get one just right. Light but well built - and they run cool. Can't understand why they went up in price so dramatically. Nothing else went up so fast... not even chocolate cookies. Weirdness.

Any thoughts?

Cheers from Crackpot
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2020, 08:31:54 AM »
This is an usual way to keep the sold out item listed in ebay. they  don't really expect anybody to order at these prices.
 

Offline CrackpotTopic starter

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Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2020, 12:29:16 AM »

This is an usual way to keep the sold out item listed in ebay. they  don't really expect anybody to order at these prices.


Well, I come from a time when the Boolean was simpler. That just does not make sense to me. [IF. NOT. THEN. DO.] They should just manufacture some more to meet demand at a reasonable cost to the buyer. These things would sell like hot cakes among those who seek to connect 2.5 HDDs/SSDs to SCSI equipment - especially the (growing) vintage computer community.

FWIW, I've tried Samsung, Kingston, Adata, Transcend and Crucial SSDs on the ARS-2160 adapters (all ranging between 60 - 250 GB drives) and all run OK. The Samsung SSDs 'feel' the best fit of all, but I could just be imagining that. No problems with any of them - altho' the usual rules regarding termination and Amiga hard-drive set-up and partitioning apply. You set 'em up like you do for any new drives on the system. The adapters themselves work right out of the box - flawlessly.

In a perfect world, any Amigan with a SCSI-equipped accelerator card should have the affordable chance to add a couple of these to their rig - even if that means living on baked beans for a month or two. Beans are good for us anyway - muscle food - and Man, do you need a strong back when you're lugging a fully decked Elbox A3000 Mediator tower rig around the house. 

But I'm just a crackpot from the past and this is not a perfect world. What would I know.

Cheers from Crackpot
 

Offline Rob

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2020, 11:10:27 PM »
SCSI2SD might be a good alternative.  They cheap in comparison to SCSI to SATA adapters and they are readily available from a number of Amiga vendors.  The V6 offers up to a theoretical 10MB/s.

This dealer can also supply 3.5" bay mounting brackets and 68 pin to 50 pin SCSI adapters if required.
https://store.inertialcomputing.com/aboutus.asp
 

Offline CrackpotTopic starter

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Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2020, 05:55:42 AM »
SCSI2SD might be a good alternative.  They cheap in comparison to SCSI to SATA adapters and they are readily available from a number of Amiga vendors.  The V6 offers up to a theoretical 10MB/s.


Yup - it wouldn't be a bad idea to have one of those in the inventory. Wish there was a 68-pin SCSI 3 version of that card. When you put a SCSI 2 device on the CyberStormPPC's SCSI 3 bus, the speed of everything else on the cable drops down to match.
 

Offline kolla

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2020, 03:09:03 PM »
It’s essentially a SCSI attached SATA controller, so NOT “just an adapter”.
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Offline Pat the Cat

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2021, 04:39:08 AM »
Might be worth asking the manufactuer if they have other American distributors;-

http://www.acard.com/index.files/Page441.htm

They list Ars-2320 as also being LVD compliant, the snag is it ships with an 80 pin connector.

This could be clone or manufacturer direct, contact at bottom, might be worth talking to them;-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ACARD-AEC-7732-SCSI-to-SATA-Adapter-68-pin-SCSI-to-serial-cable/163864824526?hash=item26271acace:g:raQAAOSw8VFdf1~C

EDIT: What might be cheaper is an LVD-IDE adaptor and an IDE SATA adapter. Although not as fast?

I doubt the scsi2sd micorocontroller is as fast and IIRC only one type of them is LVD?
« Last Edit: January 08, 2021, 05:07:53 AM by Pat the Cat »
"To recurse is human. To iterate, divine."

A1200, Vanilla, Surf Squirrel, SD Card, KS 3.0/3.z, PCMCIA dev
A500, Vanilla, A570, Rev 5, KS 1.2/1.3 Testbench system
Rasp Pi, UAE4ARM, 3D laser scanner, experimental, hoping for AmigaOS4Arm, based on Watterott Fabscan Pi
 

Offline QuikSanz

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2021, 03:29:06 PM »
Some one in the Amigasphere needs to start making these for us, it's out of hand now. I thought it was bad before whoa.
 

Offline CrackpotTopic starter

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Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2021, 12:03:20 AM »

They list Ars-2320 as also being LVD compliant, the snag is it ships with an 80 pin connector.

This could be clone or manufacturer direct, contact at bottom, might be worth talking to them;-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ACARD-AEC-7732-SCSI-to-SATA-Adapter-68-pin-SCSI-to-serial-cable/163864824526?hash=item26271acace:g:raQAAOSw8VFdf1~C

EDIT: What might be cheaper is an LVD-IDE adaptor and an IDE SATA adapter. Although not as fast?

I doubt the scsi2sd micorocontroller is as fast and IIRC only one type of them is LVD?


2SAN Inc. advertise this model on E-Bay. Check out its specs. Seems they have both 68-pin and 80-pin versions - but, just like the ARS-2160, at a whopping price. There is an 80-pin version of the 2160 also - the ARS-2160H.

[url][https://www.ebay.com/itm/68-pin-Ultra320-SCSI-to-SATA-II-Bridge-Box-for-2-5-SATA-HDD-ARS-2320/253681658172?hash=item3b109ae93c:g:uK4AAOSwEeFVGeOS/url]

Bought a refurb'd Acard-7732 off E-Bay a couple of years ago. Have it attached to an Asus SATA DVD/RW and it works just fine on the CyberStormPPC's SCSI chain, along with the two ARS-2160s. The 7732 is for CD/ODD drives tho' - not HDD/SSD. The refurb unit cost $US330 - but nearly half that cost was shipping! (Ay-yi-yi... throws arms wide and stares into sky...) From time to time refurbished 7732's can be found on E-Bay at a much cheaper cost than brand-new ones. They want $US1000 for new ones! Same catastrophic price increase occurred with them as with the ARS-2160/2320s. The only gripe I have with them is, they attach to the back of the DVD with a strip of double-sided adhesive. It ain't that strong and you have to be VERY careful when unplugging the SCSI cable lest the whole thing is pulled off with it.

One of those scsi2sd adapters is on the way. It will be interesting to compare it with the ARS-2160 regarding speed and reliability.

Anyways, thanks for the info. Cheers.
 

Offline Pat the Cat

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2021, 04:14:47 AM »
If you're looking at low cost alternative, a true LVD scsi-ide together with the right ide-compact flash is probably going to go faster than an scsi2sd.

It's like there's a glut of LVD-IDE cards. Not even $10.
"To recurse is human. To iterate, divine."

A1200, Vanilla, Surf Squirrel, SD Card, KS 3.0/3.z, PCMCIA dev
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Rasp Pi, UAE4ARM, 3D laser scanner, experimental, hoping for AmigaOS4Arm, based on Watterott Fabscan Pi
 

Offline CrackpotTopic starter

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Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2021, 08:28:28 AM »
If you're looking at low cost alternative, a true LVD scsi-ide together with the right ide-compact flash is probably going to go faster than an scsi2sd.

It's like there's a glut of LVD-IDE cards. Not even $10.

Yup. Also have an Acard ARS-2133 IDE/PATA to SATA HDD/SSD adapter. It's not LVD tho' - SCSI II. Bought that along with the ARS-2160s. It looks similar to them. They don't advertise that anymore, nor seem to have it on their site. Have tried it on the Elbox FastATA 4000 MK-VI controller in the Mediator and it works OK. The reason I like having these extra connectivity options handy for the A3000 is so that if the CyberStormPPC SCSI chip ever packed up, there would be a way to get things up and running again albeit not as fast. 'Insurance' is the driver here. 

Cheers.
 

Offline Pat the Cat

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2021, 07:05:03 AM »
You're right. SSD makes sense. You can get IDE-msata SSD adaptors. Much faster than compact flash.

Mine does about 25MB/s. It's strangled by the IDE controller. (Obviously not in an Amiga).
"To recurse is human. To iterate, divine."

A1200, Vanilla, Surf Squirrel, SD Card, KS 3.0/3.z, PCMCIA dev
A500, Vanilla, A570, Rev 5, KS 1.2/1.3 Testbench system
Rasp Pi, UAE4ARM, 3D laser scanner, experimental, hoping for AmigaOS4Arm, based on Watterott Fabscan Pi
 

Offline QuikSanz

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2021, 08:53:11 PM »
looks to me that Amigakit could make a few bucks making a batch of these. We have some talented folks in this community that can help do the design.

Chris
 

Offline nyteschayde

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Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2021, 07:25:14 PM »
Might be an interesting project to follow
http://retropc.net/gimons/rascsi/
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Offline QuikSanz

Re: Expensive Adapters
« Reply #14 on: January 24, 2021, 07:09:17 PM »
Not exactly my native language but the diagrams look like it's on the right track.