Cumana CAA XXWE External SCSI Hard Drive

The Cumana CAA XXWE External SCSI Hard Drive is a large self powered unit providing a secure enclosure for a SCSI hard disc drive. The case is coloured to match the Archimedes range of computers and requires a SCSI podule to be fitted to the Archimedes to provide SCSI controller hardware functionality. This drive is currently connected to my Acorn BBC A3000 using a Cumana 16-bit SCSI podule.

The connectors on the rear of the device are of the 50-way centronics type and provide pass-through connectivity to other SCSI devices that may be in the chain. The drive is fully terminated so does not require an external terminator to be connected.

Repair/Change History

When I received this drive, it was not being recognised by the SCSI controller. I dismantled the enclosure and tried several SCSI drives, all of which failed to work. After reseating the connector on the original drive many, many times, the drive began to work correctly.

On reassembly I managed to damage one of the legs on the activity LED and so a replacement was ordered from Rapid Electronics which are identical to the original LED's.