Solid State Disks Limited (SSDL) has introduced DuplicatorPlus, a compact hardware unit for cloning or copying the contents of legacy SCSI-based drives to CompactFlash (CF) cards, networked computers, or cloud storage. The device is aimed squarely at ageing industrial, aerospace, and defence systems that still depend on electromechanical SCSI media.
The unit is supplied as a ready-to-use package, including power lead and the necessary cables and adaptors to connect to most SCSI-based drives. When used to create a full clone onto a CF card that is compatible with one of SSDL’s SCSIFlash solid-state replacements, the resulting card can be used as a direct swap-in for the original drive. The host system does not need hardware or software modification, which is often the stumbling block with embedded legacy platforms.
Clarifying the distinction between the two operating modes, James Hilken, Sales & Marketing Director at SSDL, said: “In computing terminology, copying refers to making copies of individual files and folders. Cloning on the other hand is a block-by-block transfer of the entire image, including hidden folders.” That distinction matters in regulated or safety-critical environments where exact system images, not just user data, must be preserved.
DuplicatorPlus can be paired with SSDL’s Windows-based Flash2GUI memory management software to handle a range of workflows. Users can clone an entire SCSI drive image onto a CF card, or restrict the clone to only the formatted portion of the drive where the host has not used the full capacity. That allows deployment of lower-capacity CF media in situations where only a portion of the legacy drive is active.
The same platform can also be used for card-to-card operations. Users can copy only the data from one CF card to another, or perform a full clone of one card’s contents onto a second card. This consolidates what would previously have required multiple pieces of equipment in the field or lab.
“This new product combines and adds to the functionality of two earlier SSDL products, a clone station and a dedicated card duplicator, which customers have used in the past, and which are still supported,” Hilken added. “DuplicatorPlus is just as compact, portable and easy to use as its predecessors, but it is now a multifunctional device.” That consolidation will likely appeal to engineers supporting long-life platforms where SCSI storage is only one part of a broader obsolescence headache.
Available immediately, DuplicatorPlus supports most SCSI-based drives with 50-, 68-, or 80-pin interfaces, covering early-generation hard disk and floppy disk formats. SSDL quotes a data transfer rate of more than 6 Gb per minute. The unit ships with a single 32 GB industrial-grade CF card, with higher capacities available on request; a second CF card is required for card-to-card copying.
Hilken said: “DuplicatorPlus is ideal for cloning the image of an electromechanical SCSI drive onto a CF card for backup purposes or, better still, for use in a solid-state-based SCSIFlash drive that can be used as swap-in replacement for the legacy drive. It’s an ideal way of improving the reliability and extending the life of decades-old host computers that are still heavily relied upon in the aerospace, defence, telecoms and manufacturing sectors, for example.” For users facing dwindling availability of SCSI drives and rising failure rates, a direct, hardware-level migration path to solid-state media will be a welcome addition to the toolkit.
