SCSI card for Canon FS4000US scanner - advice sought.

[John]

I have a Canon FS4000US film scanner which runs slow on USB2. The manual
recommends an Adaptec Ultra SCSI AHA-2940AU card. I have looked on Ebay and
found several: 2940U, 2940CU as well as AU. Would any of these cards do the
job? Anyone know what is the difference? I run Windows XP home: Is a driver
required or will the computer recognise the card without a driver?

Thanks

(if replying direct please remove Z's from address)

 

[Klaas Visser]

I have a Canon FS4000US film scanner which runs slow on USB2. The manual
recommends an Adaptec Ultra SCSI AHA-2940AU card. I have looked on Ebay and
found several: 2940U, 2940CU as well as AU. Would any of these cards do the
job? Anyone know what is the difference? I run Windows XP home: Is a driver
required or will the computer recognise the card without a driver?

Thanks

(if replying direct please remove Z's from address)

I run my FS4000 on an Adaptec 2930 (cheaper than the 2940) under WinXP
with no issues. WinXP (both Home and Professional) have native drivers
for the card, so you don't need to load anything extra.

Check out the Adaptec site (www.adaptec.com) for differences in the
various U, CU, AU versions.

--
cheers,
Klaas

Learning without thought is labour lost;
Thought without learning is perilous.
- Confucius

 

[Bruce Graham]

I run my FS4000 on an Adaptec 2930 (cheaper than the 2940) under WinXP
with no issues. WinXP (both Home and Professional) have native drivers
for the card, so you don't need to load anything extra.

Check out the Adaptec site (www.adaptec.com) for differences in the
various U, CU, AU versions.

I have seen people recommend the cheapest SCSI card you can find. That
works for me (still on Win9x). I have a Tekram DC315U for 2 years which
cost about US$15, plus a $10 cable. It took about 5 minutes to install
and the only time I have spent sice is telling people about it on this
forum. It makes the scanner useably fast rather than pathetically slow.

Bruce Graham

 

[John]

I asked a friend of mine about using SCSI instead of USB2 He pointed out
data transfer of USB2 is 480Mbits/Sec according to www.usb.org whereas the
Adaptec card quoted at 20MB/s, so therefore the USB2 appears faster - or
have I missed something?!

John

 

[John]

2940's are going on Ebay for around £10-£20 so I guess not too expensive
though I would need a HD cable at around £15 new. See other post - do I
really get an advantage in speed over USB2?

John

 

[Bruce Graham]

I asked a friend of mine about using SCSI instead of USB2 He pointed out
data transfer of USB2 is 480Mbits/Sec according to www.usb.org whereas the
Adaptec card quoted at 20MB/s, so therefore the USB2 appears faster - or
have I missed something?!

snip>

My FS4000 is only USB 1.1 which is much slower than USB 2 or SCSI. I
don't think the scanner has been updated

 

[Mac McDougald]

I asked a friend of mine about using SCSI instead of USB2 He pointed out
data transfer of USB2 is 480Mbits/Sec according to www.usb.org whereas the
Adaptec card quoted at 20MB/s, so therefore the USB2 appears faster - or
have I missed something?!

John

Divide megaBITS by 8 to get megaBYTES.

Even though I don't own that scanner, I can assure you that it isn't
going to feed 20 MegaBytes per sec worth of data to your puter.

Mac

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Divide megaBITS by 8 to get megaBYTES.

Indeed, but isn't that John's point? 160Mbit/sec SCSI is still slower
than the 480Mbit/sec USB2 he is currently using - so he should not
expect it to be any faster through SCSI than it currently is.

Even though I don't own that scanner, I can assure you that it isn't
going to feed 20 MegaBytes per sec worth of data to your puter.

In other words, the bus speed would appear not to be the limiting
factor.

John, when you say the scanner is slow under USB2, do you mean slow
compared to your expectations or slow compared to the specification?

 

[Mac McDougald]

Indeed, but isn't that John's point? 160Mbit/sec SCSI is still slower
than the 480Mbit/sec USB2 he is currently using - so he should not
expect it to be any faster through SCSI than it currently is.

Yes, I worded it poorly.
Plus the scanner is only 1.1 capable anyway.
The SCSI will probably speed up the scanning somewhat from 1.1, but
probably not by double, and of course not even in the ballpark for what
the SCSI can actually handle.

Mac
=============

 

[Ricky]

2940's are going on Ebay for around £10-£20 so I guess not too expensive

though I would need a HD cable at around £15 new. See other post - do I
really get an advantage in speed over USB2?

John

Yes - because even though your computer may have USB2 capabilities,
the FS4000 is a USB1.1 device, and so transfers data at USB1.1 speeds,
which is far slower than SCSI and FAR FAR FAR slower than USB2.

Ricky.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Yes, I worded it poorly.
Plus the scanner is only 1.1 capable anyway.

Yes, I had forgotten that this was one of the main limitations of this
scanner even when it was introduced.

The SCSI will probably speed up the scanning somewhat from 1.1, but
probably not by double, and of course not even in the ballpark for what
the SCSI can actually handle.

Canon spec a minimum scan time of 48secs at 4000ppi. Assuming this
refers to 48bit colour scanning, that corresponds to 2.7MBytes/sec,
which is almost double the limit of USB1.1.

 

[Mac McDougald]

Yes, I had forgotten that this was one of the main limitations of this
scanner even when it was introduced.

Canon spec a minimum scan time of 48secs at 4000ppi. Assuming this
refers to 48bit colour scanning, that corresponds to 2.7MBytes/sec,
which is almost double the limit of USB1.1.

"minimum" may be the key phrase there, might not even be claiming 48bit,
who knows. Never saw anyone here claim this scanner is very fast with
SCSI either.

Mac

 

[Bruce Graham]

"minimum" may be the key phrase there, might not even be claiming 48bit,
who knows. Never saw anyone here claim this scanner is very fast with
SCSI either.

Mac

depends on exposure time. with SCSI and exposure =1 it does that 48
second time approx. with USB 1.1 it is _much_ slower, I forget exactly
but I think 3x or 4x (you never get the theoretical throughput of a
protocol). Exposure goes in integer steps. Negs usually use exposure 2
which takes twice as long, transparencies can be 1. The kicker is the IR
channel which is a second scan and Vuescan usually gives a longer
exposure than the visible scan. Kodachromes don't have the IR scan, but
may need a slow long exposure second pass to probe the black depths.

Anyway, SCSI makes the thing useable, with USB1.1 it is a dog.

Bruce Graham