No...it lost, where it >really< counted (i.e., the marketplace).
Oh, I disagree. It is just that SCSI HDDs (just the main SCSI
application, but by no means SCSI itself) lost. SCSI as in the
SCSI command-subset is pretty strong, as every USB storage device
talks it over USB cables. No stupid 24 bit or 48 bit sector
numbers either, it was 32 bit from the beginning and pretty
soon 64 bit.
The problem is just that SCSI was mature, flexible and fast
at a time ATA did not even exist and so was the natural
selection for high-performance drives and whan you wanted 7 (or 15)
drives on one controllers. His later morphed to HDD manufacturers
associating SCSI with "high quality" (sometimes true, some times
not and basically just higher speeds today at vastly higher prices).
But the technology is around and will not go away. Just the
specific application as the HDD-integrated interface has
morphed to SAS now, which is almost SATA, but not quite.
SAS controllers can work with SATA disks, but not the other
way round. What is a thing of the past is SCSI as "high
reliability". Ans it was not always true either.
But you need to remember that SCSI is not a HDD interface. It
is a bus system, multi-master capable, supports several meters
of cable (depending on variant) and has very high interoperability
and reliability, _if_ you are able to understand the termination
concept. Turns out that "exactly two terminators, one at precisely
each end" is beyong quite a few IT "experts". It was, for example,
also used to attach scanners or as a high-speed PC local interconnect,
as it is multi-master capable.
Arno