Sandman,
The WD SCSI chip / controller (an early SCSI-II compliant chip) in the A3000 motherboard has always been something of a "mixed bag" in my opinion. It has known issues, as referenced below from the BBoAH site:
"SCSI Problems
The A3000 may suffer SCSI related problems when several SCSI devices are attached to the bus. The most common are random SCSI bus lockups, especially with CD-ROMs and tape driver and random checksum errors when copying large files between devices. These problems can, in most cases (providing termination and jumpers are correct) be attributed to the WD33C93A SCSI controller chip in the A3000. Most, if not all, A3000s shipped with the WD33C93A-PL 00-04 chip revision. This chip had known bugs when multiple devices were present on the SCSI bus. The WD33C93A-PL 00-08 chip revision addresses and fixes the above problems.
WD33C93A-PL 00-08 9131 F (Latest Revision)
WD33C93A-PL 00-04 9201 D (default release)"
** Let me add that in my opinion, while the rev-08 chip is a great improvement, it did not fix all problems as listed above. That is my opinion based on my years of using my A3000 (still have and use it). **
So, in general, it will read older, SCSI-1 drives just fine and most SCSI-II drives provided that you have the latest version of the WD chip installed (-08 version). "Newer" SCSI devices (80 pin, LVD, etc...) may or may not be taskable or even viewable by the controller.
I do not recommend using adaptors (other than gender changers) on SCSI devices as these can present their own problems. Not saying they will, but they can.
As for adding drives in your A3000 you need to remember that if you plan to put two drives into the A3000 you will need to remove the terminator (either caps or pin) from the original Quantum drive (presuming you keep it) and enable termination on the added drive (also be sure the device ID is not the same or neither drive will show up) at the end of the chain. Likewise, external devices will need a terminated device at the end of the SCSI cable.
Many people who use/used the A3000D with larger (2+ GB) SCSI drives generally used a different controller, at least for the inital format and partition. Examples would include the controller(s) on your accelerator card, NewTek Video Flyer Card, Fast Lane Z3, etc..
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Ltstanfo
Hope this helps.
