SCSI adapter
<hardware>
(Or "host adapter") A device that communicates between a computer and its SCSI peripherals. The SCSI adapter is usually assigned SCSI ID 7. It is often a separate card that is connected to the computer's bus (e.g. PCI, ISA, PCMCIA) though increasinly, SCSI adapters are built in to the motherboard. Apart from being cheaper, busses like PCI are too slow to keep up with the newer SCSI standards like Ultra SCSI and Ultra-Wide SCSI.
There are several varieties of SCSI (and their connectors) and an adapter will not support them all. The performance of SCSI devices is limited by the speed of the SCSI adapter and its connection to the computer. An adapter that plugs into a parallel port is unlikely to be as fast as one incorporated into a motherboard. Fast adapters use DMA or bus mastering. Some SCSI adapters include a BIOS to allow PCs to boot from a SCSI hard disk, if their own BIOS supports it. Adaptec make the majority of SCSI chipsets and many of the best-selling adapters. Note that it is not a "SCSI controller" - it does not control the devices, and "SCSI interface" is redundant - the "I" of "SCSI" stands for "interface".Last updated: 1999-11-24
Nearby terms:
SCSI-2 ♦ SCSI-3 ♦ SCSI adapter ♦ SCSI adaptor ♦ SCSI controller ♦ SCSI ID
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