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Small Computer System Interface
SCSI is actually an acronym for Small Computer System
Interface and it is pronounced as "skuzzy". It is the
second-most popular hard disk interface used in PCs today. It's a
high-speed, intelligent peripheral I/O bus with a device independent
protocol for transferring data between different types of peripheral
devices. The SCSI bus connects all parts of a computer system so that
they can communicate with each other. The bus frees the host processor
from the responsibility of I/O internal tasks. A SCSI bus can be
either internal, external, or cross the boundary from internal to
external. The SCSI protocol is a peer-to-peer relationship: one device
does not have to be subordinated to another device in order to perform
I/0 activities. Only two of these devices can communicate on the bus
at any given time.
Each SCSI bus can connect up to 8 or up to 16 peripherals; one of
those devices will always be the computer or the SCSI card, because
they too are devices on the SCSI. SCSI devices are designated as
either initiators (drivers) or targets (receivers) and the interface
to the host computer is called the host adapter. Every device
connected to the bus will have a different SCSI ID, ranging from 0 to
7. The host adapter takes up one ID leaving 7 ID's for other hardware.
SCSI hardware typically consists of hard drives, tape drives, CD-ROMs,
printers and scanners
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