--- Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
The drives I purchased previously thinking that they
would work in my
Onyx2 Reality Monster (and presumably the Origin
2000) look similar,
but not identical, to the connector depicted in the
lower portion of
the photo. They must include power because there is
no other
connector on the drive to supply power, but instead
of the smaller
connector off to the left, it looks physically very
similar to the
connector shown in the top part of the photo, only
the connector has
fewer pins, is narrower and still located in the
center of the sled
assembly.
The top connector in the photo is a standard 80 pin
SCA SCSI connector. The narrower one you describe
sounds like Fibre Channel (FC-AL) it's 40 pin. Both
are backplane based technologies that don't use cables
or separate power connectors.
Now, once you have drives that plug into those
connectors inside the computer, you don't necessarily
need actual sleds. A litle trick I found on SGI Octane
systems - the rails that the drive sled fits onto are
exactly the correct spacing and height to use CD jewel
cases instead. The top two bays, use regular full size
cases, the bottom one, use a slimline case. Just sit
the drive on the CD case, line it up, and mate it with
the connector. Mine has been running like this for
years. Just remember if you ever need to move it...
-Ian