Convert SCSI to USB??

I have an Epson 17" scanner that connects to a desktop computer via a SCSI card/cable. I would like to be able to use the scanner on my main Sager notebook, and an trying to find whether there's some kind of SCSI <--> USB 3 converter that would work to accomplish this?

SCSI's a dead technology. Really hasn't been produced for about 10 years. It's also pretty complex and was tough to put in a USB adapter. There were a few USB 2.0 to SCSI adapters made, but they were buggy and expensive. You might be able to find one on ebay, but no guarantees it will work or have drivers for your laptop/OS.

It looks like your scanner had a firewire option. If your laptop has an expresscard or cardbus slot, you can get a IEEE1394 (firewire) port to use the scanner. Those are still being made.

There's also a network adapter (For $350) you can buy for the scanner to use it on the network. That would be easy.

If this scanner is worth it and provides an important service for you, you also might consider setting up a cheap old desktop with an internal PCI SCSI card to scan from

tkbslc said:

SCSI's a dead technology. Really hasn't been produced for about 10 years. It's also pretty complex and was tough to put in a USB adapter. There were a few USB 2.0 to SCSI adapters made, but they were buggy and expensive. You might be able to find one on ebay, but no guarantees it will work or have drivers for your laptop/OS.

It looks like your scanner had a firewire option. If your laptop has an expresscard or cardbus slot, you can get a IEEE1394 (firewire) port to use the scanner. Those are still being made.

There's also a network adapter (For $350) you can buy for the scanner to use it on the network. That would be easy.

If this scanner is worth it and provides an important service for you, you also might consider setting up a cheap old desktop with an internal PCI SCSI card to scan from

Click to expand...

I expect you're right in that a replacement pc would be the most practical route. We've a closet full of OLD Dells that I expect could be used to come up with something.

It's an old scanner but I got it from a company that didn't use it that much and it was completely overhauled (doc feeder, belts, etc) shortly after we got it. Don't need the 17 inch bed that much but when we do, it's great to have.

I went around and around with Epson re. a network connection some years ago. I just remember that there were issues with either the adapter or the drivers. As it doesn't currently have a firewire card, I expect that would be a similar situation.

I just took at look at the spec on that page I linked to and at first glance saw that the minimum requirement was 64 GB of RAM. Wha'... ?!? Oh, hang on, that's 64 *M*B of RAM. Sheesh... things sure have changed ...

Timzee said:

tkbslc said:

SCSI's a dead technology. Really hasn't been produced for about 10 years. It's also pretty complex and was tough to put in a USB adapter. There were a few USB 2.0 to SCSI adapters made, but they were buggy and expensive. You might be able to find one on ebay, but no guarantees it will work or have drivers for your laptop/OS.

It looks like your scanner had a firewire option. If your laptop has an expresscard or cardbus slot, you can get a IEEE1394 (firewire) port to use the scanner. Those are still being made.

There's also a network adapter (For $350) you can buy for the scanner to use it on the network. That would be easy.

If this scanner is worth it and provides an important service for you, you also might consider setting up a cheap old desktop with an internal PCI SCSI card to scan from

Click to expand...

I expect you're right in that a replacement pc would be the most practical route. We've a closet full of OLD Dells that I expect could be used to come up with something.

Click to expand...

If you find one with a PCI slot (not PCI express) then you can get a high quality, used, adaptec SCSI adapter for under $20 on ebay. It looks like it has drivers all the way back to Win ME/2000, so you shouldn't need much.

tkbslc said:

If you find one with a PCI slot (not PCI express) then you can get a high quality, used, adaptec SCSI adapter for under $20 on ebay. It looks like it has drivers all the way back to Win ME/2000, so you shouldn't need much.

Click to expand...

Right-- I salvaged the SCSI card from the defunct computer. I also think I still have the drives I downloaded but good to know Epson still keeps them online. Not surprising as I expect there's many folks out there still using equipment this old and older. Especially the higher end gear.

Timzee said:

tkbslc said:

If you find one with a PCI slot (not PCI express) then you can get a high quality, used, adaptec SCSI adapter for under $20 on ebay. It looks like it has drivers all the way back to Win ME/2000, so you shouldn't need much.

Click to expand...

Right-- I salvaged the SCSI card from the defunct computer. I also think I still have the drives I downloaded but good to know Epson still keeps them online. Not surprising as I expect there's many folks out there still using equipment this old and older. Especially the higher end gear.

Click to expand...

You need the driver for the SCSI card, not the Epson scanner, which will probably need it's own software.

If you have an Adaptec SCSI card (most are) you can download the drivers from the Adaptec website.
I have an old Minolta SCSI 35mm film scanner which I use with an Adaptec SCSI card running under Windows 7 64-bit on a desktop machine. Just downloaded the drivers from Adaptec - no problems.