SCSI Card

Wolf,

Page 7 of the service manual shows the location of the PC Board connector where you plug in the SCSI card to the motherboard. Page 80 shows where the connector on the installed SCSI card can be accessed on the rear of the SX-1. The Service Manual is available for download in the Documentation Section of this forum. I have included a photo of the rear of the LE Plus I bought from Vermondi a few years back and it came with the SCSI card and an external SCSI Hard Drive. The thick black cable is for the external SCSI Drive. The blue connector is plugged into the VGA card & goes to my monitor and the light grey cable is plugged into the ethernet card. Hope this helps!

itRw1an.jpg
 
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thanks Russ...the post from vermondi and Redbus in the Release notes, is where I read about the SCSI card, because vermondi was installing one at that time...I guess you bought that SX from him...the main question now is, is there any cable that needs to be attached to the card internally? or just install it like any other card?
also, I need to terminate the end of the SCSI cable (vermondi said he bought his cable that way)...how does that work? I notice online that there's a terminator connector with no cable attached..if I use an external hard drive, does that get connected to the Out port of the external hd bay?
will this unit work?:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181663214403?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
 
The SCSI card plugs into the motherboard. The SCSI cable (the black one in my photo) goes from the connector on the SCSI card (that will be on the rear of your SX as shown in the same photo) to the connector of the external SCSI drive. This drive will have its own power supply ( plugs into ac outlet). It may or may not have an internal terminator for the SCSI device chain ( you only have a single device but SCSI lets you daisy chain multiple SCSI devices. The last device should have a terminator to properly end the daisy chain)

The item you linked on eBay looks like it is for a digital tape drive with a SCSI interface - not a hard drive.
 
That drive looks okay but I can't guarantee that it will work straight off with your SCSI card. If you look over the material from the old forum (search on "SCSI"), particularly threads from Redbus (a Tascam engineer that worked on the SX-1). Note comments by Redbus and Tascamwiz that you MAY need to make sure you load the latest firmware update onto the SCSI card you plug into the SX-1 for it to work properly. Point is there are lots of little things that will have to be tracked down systematically IF the card and drive you use don't work straight away. You may have to patiently track down any such issues and address them one at a time but you should be able to get this working if you make a determined effort. These machines are all getting old and I wouldn't recommend anyone use them for serious work unless they are aware that THEY ARE THE MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN unless you know and can afford someone to keep it running for you. I have two working (for now) machines because I use one as a backup in case the other fails. That way I can continue on with clients while I fix what is ailing the broken machine. I also backup after every session to iMac via FTP and then back that up using Apple's Time Machine. In worst case scenario (both machines go down at once) I can function using PreSonus Studio One DAW since it reads the SX-1 project files (except for MIDI data). If I keep my studio operation going for the long term, I know that at some point I will have to transition from the SX-1 LE's that I now use and love to something else. Since I'm getting a bit long in the tooth myself, I may not have to fact that issue.

Good luck with you SX-1's.
 
I was hoping that Redbus and others would jump in here...I see he still posts once in a while...
 
Russ...what external SCSI drive are you using? maybe I can find one or something similar...
 
Wolf - It is a Seagate Model ST373207LW, Rev. 0003 (Seagate marketed it as a "Cheetah 10K U320 68 pin SCSI Hard Drive") The one I have is installed in a generic enclosure that has an internal AC power supply and a pair of SCSI connectors on the back so that it can be daisy-chained with other SCSI devices. The enclosure has no identification on it whatsoever. It is a 73GB drive but when formatted as FAT32 by the SX-1 LE Plus (running OS 1.52) it comes up on the SX as having 68GB of storage space. For comparison, the 80GB Western Digital drives I use in removable drive bays show up as having 74GB available for storage.I have included a photo of the SCSI drive enclosure sitting on top of the SX-1 just above the CDROM and removeable main drive.

SCSI Drive.jpg
 
I bought a StorCase DS100-S1W, the correct cable, a terminator, the SCSI card and a hard drive...when they all arrive and when I put them all together, I'll post the results...I'm hoping for the best...thanks for all the help so far...
 
I haven't used my SX-1 (or scsi) in years but the posts above seem to be correct. Connect the cable (not ribbon) to the external scsi port and external hard drive. The external scsi hard drive enclosure should have a switch on it that terminates the scsi chain if I remember correctly. It the enclosure has another scsi connector on it, instead of a switch, then put the terminating plug on it to terminate the scsi chain. I'm goimg by memory but it should be pretty straight forward. Hope this helps.
 
hey Radside...I haven't seen your name on the forums for a long time! thanks for chiming in...I'll probably have the parts all assembled by the weekend and we'll see how it goes...some haven't arrived yet, but they're in transit...
it "should" be simple if I have all the correct pieces...I'm also replacing the screen on the SX, so I'll have her opened up all weekend...that "should" also be simple...
like I said...we'll see...
I'll keep you all posted...
 
My advice here is to go with the external SCSI only. It is possible to use the internal SCSI bus to go to an internal drive, and have the external available, but it creates a problem with possible dual termination (the board is in the middle of the bus, not at teh end).
I think any of the 3 cards in that series worked - my spare parts box had at least 2 types, but the dual internal/external combination may have required a certain model.
There is a SCSI BIOS updater CD image on the webpage:
https://dev.tascam-parc.com/sx1/BIOS/

But I'm guessing that you'd have to be really unlucky to get a board with an older BIOS than that.

I had an internal SCSI on a removable sled, but I ended up leaving it unlocked/off most of the time because of the noise, and doing a restart with the drive enabled to do a backup.

RedBus.
 
hey RedBus...thanks for the reply...I didn't even know you could go with an internal hard drive, so that wasn't something I considered...I bought and external unit (Storcase 100i) and it just arrived yesterday...the cable I bought on eBay was incorrect and the new one got here on Monday...I'm still waiting for the actual hard drive (Seagate Cheetah) and that should be by Friday...the SCSI card is installed and now it's just a matter of waiting...
do I need to do anything with the Jumper pins? I inadvertently pulled them out when I was removing the old hard drive from the Storcase unit...
 
what I don't understand about this topic could fill several volumes! first, I purchased the wrong external bay, then the wrong cable, wrong terminator and now, the wrong hard drive! I finally was able to get the correct (hopefully) external bay, cable and card, which leaves me with the hard drive...I purchased the "Seagate Cheetah ST373307LC 73GB 10K U320 SCSI Hard Drive" because I thought this would work with the Storcase Data 100i bay, but there's no power connector on the hard drive and the receiving tray doesn't accommodate the Cheetah...it came with a Seagate "Barracuda" that has the power connector and a different 68-pin connector...how do you use the Cheetah without connecting a power supply? I know it has an internal power supply, so I don't need to connect it to anything except the SCSI cable coming from the SX-1?
if that's not the answer, then what hard drive should I buy for the Data 100i and will it work with the SX-1?
this gets more confusing every day...I thought any SCSI hard drive would be compatible...I finally learned all of the ins and outs of the SX-1 and thought that backing up my projects would be a piece of cake...but, my FTP isn't functioning anymore and I can't figure out the external hard drive thing!
like I said, you could fill several LARGE volumes with what I don't understand...
 
You probably got an 80 pin SCSI drive, those are the ones that hot swap in servers directly (data & power on the same connector).
There are adapters, but to work in a tray you'll need to find a drive with the 68pin connector.

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-80-P...&qid=1426873467&sr=1-1&keywords=scsi+80+to+68

Jumper pins set the SCSI ID. If I recall correctly, on a 68pin drive they are on the drive, but on an 80 pin drive, the backplane has the ID for each connector, so the adapter would have the pins.
The internal board is usually set to ID 7, then the drives are 0 through 6.
(Ignore 8 to 15, depending on cabling adapters and terminators, they may not be available).
 
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is this the one I need?
Seagate Cheetah 9LP ST34502LW 9k8005-001 68-Pin, 4.55GB
I bought the LC by mistake!
 
Yeah, that looks familiar. 4.5GB is probably enough for a small project, but see if you can get a 36GB or 73GB (don't go for 144GB), I remember that causing problems)
 
OK...I have a 36GB HD coming, but I still don't have the right enclosure...or at least I'm not certain the one I have will work...like I said, I accidentally pulled the Jumper cables and have no idea how to reconnect them...do I even need them if I'm only using one hard drive?
anyway, I hooked up the Data 100i enclosure to the SCSI card on the SX to see if it would work with the hard drive that was already inside the unit (a Seagate Barracuda) and the SX froze at "Fader Calibration Ended"...I disconnected and rebooted with no problems...
I really can't afford to have the SX break down on me now...
 
still no luck...I bought another external hard drive enclosure, which should be here sometime early next week and will try again...and now, I've been having a few other issues that I hope are minor...but I'm not going to get into them at this time...
I still can't use the FTP function for some unknown reason, even though it was working perfectly a few months ago...I also swapped out the RAM cards, but they didn't work...I bought the right ones, based on what I read on the old forum, but the SX wouldn't boot with them in...I asked, several months ago if someone could tell me the "exact" RAM cards that the SX uses (not just the RAM capacity), but no one answered the question...
I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best...
 
Somewhere in the UI is a 16 bit / 8 bit SCSI width control. Some devices just wouldn't work at 16 bit... You'd need to switch it with the SCSI disconnected, then power down and connect the cables.

Any PC100 or PC133 memory 64MB, 128MB or 256MB sticks should work, it'll all run at PC100 speed.
It's not like the MX-2424 which required an unusual speed grade.
 
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