Article ID: 103435
Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.1
This article was previously published under Q103435
SUMMARY
The following are advantages of the small computer system interface (SCSI):
- Unlike other interfaces, when you interface with different device types using SCSI, the interfacing is done through the same cable. In a non-SCSI environment, devices such as a proprietary tape controller, disk controller, and so on, must be used to connect their respective devices to the system bus.
- SCSI peripheral devices of the same type have similar characteristics (this makes it easy to replace old devices with new ones).
- SCSI peripheral devices are intelligent and independent: a controller is built onto each SCSI device. This allows the computer to do other work.
- SCSI I/O is independent of the system bus. This allows peripheral devices to work with different computer types, which preserves a company's hardware investment.
- SCSI is fast (10 megabytes (MB)/second on 8 bit bus, 20 MB/second on 16 bit bus).
- Multi-threaded operating systems, such as Windows NT, can take full advantage of the multi-tasking capabilities of the SCSI bus.
For example, when a Windows NT thread requests to read a logical block on SCSI disk 1, and at the same time, a second thread requests to write some data to SCSI disk 2, the following may occur:
- The SCSI host adapter will process the first request made by Windows NT executive by arbitrating the SCSI bus and making a connection to disk 1.
- After the connection is made, disk 1 will disconnect and give up the bus (bus free) so that other requests can be made by the host.
- The first thread will stop executing and will wait while the slow I/O device completes a data transfer.
- As the seek is carried out on disk 1, the second thread request will be processed in the same manner as the first, because Windows NT can issue a "context switch" to allow for a thread of execution while another is still being completed.
- Because the bus is free at this time, the host (initiator) will be able to make a connection with disk 2. Disk 2 will then disconnect and perform a write of some data to a logical location on the disk. At the same time, disk 1 may still be seeking the block to read. The two devices are therefore performing a task ( read, write) simultaneously.
Additional query words: prodnt
Keywords: kbhardware KB103435
