The Ultra SCSI PCI card lets you use older external SCSI devices such as tape drives, scanners, and hard disks with your new Power Mac G4 or Macintosh Server G4. You can connect standard SCSI (SCSI-1), Fast SCSI (SCSI-2), and Ultra SCSI (also called Ultra Narrow SCSI) peripherals to the Ultra SCSI card. With the card installed, you can also start up your computer from externally connected drives.
This economical and convenient option lets you connect up to seven SCSI devices, as long as the total cable length measures no more than 6 meters, or about 18 feet. The card supports cable lengths of 1.5 meters when running in Ultra SCSI mode or 6 meters when running in SCSI-1 or SCSI-2 mode. Ultra SCSI mode supports transfer rates of up to 20 megabytes per second (MBps). SCSI-2 mode supports up to 10MBps, and SCSI-1 supports up to 5MBps. The Ultra SCSI card includes a 25- to 50-pin cable adapter.
| SCSI Type | Speed | Connector | SCSI Ids |
| SCSI (SCSI-1) * | 5MBps | 25- and 50-pin | 7 |
| Fast SCSI (SCSI-2) * | 10MBps | 25- and 50-pin | 7 |
| Fast Wide SCSI | 20MBps | 50-pin | 15 |
| Ultra SCSI * | 20MBps | 50-pin | 7 |
| Ultra Wide SCSI | 40MBps | 68-pin | 15 |
| Ultra2 LVD SCSI | 80MBps | 68-pin | 15 |
| Ultra160 SCSI | 160MBps | 68-pin | 15 |
| * Works with Ultra SCSI card |
Note: Different types of SCSI devices connected to a SCSI channel operate only as fast as the slowest device on the chain. For example, a SCSI-2 (10MBps) tape drive and an Ultra160 SCSI (160MBps) hard disk on the same SCSI channel will both operate at 10MBps. However, with the dual-channel Ultra160 SCSI card, you can easily connect external SCSI devices on the second SCSI chain without affecting the performance of your internally connected Ultra160 SCSI drives.