Replacement SPINNING drive for Quadra?

[ChadVDR]

I've got the BlueSCSI for expansion and transferring but I don't want to give up the comfy hum of the spinning internal drive. It's as much a part of the experience as CRT flicker. I will also say that the internal drive is faster than the external BlueSCSI.

I'm not brushed up on the interface so I'm hoping somebody has a way to clear up the confusion for me.

I've read that the latest SCSI standards can be adapted to the Quadra 610 but I do get confused by wide, fast, SE, LVD, SCA etc.

To keep things simple, can somebody suggest the best route to add a more modern drive (say 2005 or later) that I can use inside the Quadra case that doesn't require adding expansion cards and wouldn't be too hard to find a 5400RPM version? Almost every modern SCSI drive I find (starting around the late 90's) is at least 10,000RPM which is shrill and unnerving. If I can find a 5400RPM drive like the original then it would operate closer to what I'm used to in the noise department.

 

[Phipli]

I've got the BlueSCSI for expansion and transferring but I don't want to give up the comfy hum of the spinning internal drive. It's as much a part of the experience as CRT flicker. I will also say that the internal drive is faster than the external BlueSCSI.

I'm not brushed up on the interface so I'm hoping somebody has a way to clear up the confusion for me.

I've read that the latest SCSI standards can be adapted to the Quadra 610 but I do get confused by wide, fast, SE, LVD, SCA etc.

To keep things simple, can somebody suggest the best route to add a more modern drive (say 2005 or later) that I can use inside the Quadra case that doesn't require adding expansion cards and wouldn't be too hard to find a 5400RPM version? Almost every modern SCSI drive I find (starting around the late 90's) is at least 10,000RPM which is shrill and unnerving. If I can find a 5400RPM drive like the original then it would operate closer to what I'm used to in the noise department.

Truth be told, its a bit tricky.

The best solution is to find a 50 pin disk. Or a specific model known to work with a specific adapter.

Every one of those adapters on eBay isn't correctly designed. None terminate the unused pins. Some hard disks cope with this even though it is out of spec.

And all thats before you work out which type of fast/wide SCSI you're thinking of!

 

[Byrd]

Even if you get the relevant 68pin to 50pin SCSI adapter + faster late model spinning HD, it doesn't sound the same. Keep looking for 50 pin units, the 1/2GB Quantum or IBM branded drives are pretty good from the era (as in, they don't seem to have the reliability problems as older smaller models).

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Do the 1/2GB Quantum drives have the internal rubber bumpers? Because if they do, they may be fairly reliable now, but that won't last more than a few more years at this point. I'm fairly certain the first gen Bigfoot drives had the bumpers, and those are from 1996.

I'd go with IBM for long-term life, I just can't trust 90s Quantum drives after what the ProDrives do...

 

[Byrd]

I've got a heap of 1/2GB Quantums in various Macs, they're solid.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Well for now they are. I'd be interested to see how internally similar they are to the ELS and LPS drives. Could be that in another 5 years the rubber starts to go sticky. I suppose we'll see.
Would be useful to know exactly how long they used rubber bumpers for.

 

[volvo242gt]

IBM, meh - remember the "DeathStar" drives. Seagate works well, as do Maxtor drives, if you want to stay away from Quantum. Right now, I have a 1.2GB Fireball that came out of my Centris 650. Is going into the Quadra 650 I'll be building up soon. Yes, it, like all of the 1994-on ProDrive drives, does have rubber bumpers that may turn to goo. The 230 I had in the aforementioned 650 didn't die from sticky bumper syndrome. Board went bad after an activity LED was connected to it. Pulled the lid and checked the rubber bumper and it wasn't sticky at all.

 

[volvo242gt]

Well for now they are. I'd be interested to see how internally similar they are to the ELS and LPS drives. Could be that in another 5 years the rubber starts to go sticky. I suppose we'll see.
Would be useful to know exactly how long they used rubber bumpers for.

The early Fireball, Maverick, and Lightning drives are identical to those. Same casting and lid design. The later Fireball TM drives (typically 3GB or higher, capacity-wise) are a different design, at least externally.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

The deathstar IBMs were made around the year 2000 range, so within a year or two give or take of that time. I've actually got one, a DTLA series (the worst of 'em) and it's still good, in my Sawtooth G4. Before and after they are some of the most reliable, especially a mid 90s drive and earlier. Anecdotal, but I've only had one failure out of a bunch of IBM drives, and even that failure still somewhat works.

If the Quantum drives from the 90s all have the bumpers, it isn't a question of if, but when they fail. Many will still have years left as aside from the bumpers I'd assume they're pretty decent drives, but yeah I wouldn't trust one to last long-term.

The Seagate and Maxtor drives are decent as far as I know. Thing is I don't think Apple ever shipped any in their desktops, pretty sure they just used Quantum, IBM, and Conner throughout most of the 90s. Late 90s they started using more drives from Toshiba, Maxtor, Seagate, WD, etc. So the SCSI ones at least are a bit hard to find.

What I really don't get is the supposed extreme rarity of 2.5" SCSI drives. Yes, pretty much only Apple used them, but Apple also made a ton of laptops. They're also more reliable I think than they get credit for. The Quantum ones all go bad of course, but the IBMs and Conners are more solid. Early Conners have the bumper but are easy to fix. I just really don't get the people trying to sell them for hundreds of dollars, or even 100 dollars. Don't think they should sell for any more than an SSD solution does.
I've currently got 4 working 2.5" SCSI drives. A rarer Toshiba that was aftermarket, 2 Conners (one bumper rescued drive), and an IBM. Ran into one dead one, 20MB Conner in a PB 100. Fixed the bumper but had some different age related failure.
Even many of the Quantum drives can be fixed, like the IDE Quantum Daytona drive I got out of my PB 150. Of course I managed to goof that one up but it is possible.

 

[volvo242gt]

I also have one that came out ot my second G4 DA. A 30GB DTLA drive. Worked fine last time I used it, which was about a year ago when I figured I'd see if I could get the B&W to work with the 10.6 beta that was PPC. Installed it on that drive, but I think the beta wants either a G4 or a G5.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Yeah anything newer than Tiger needs AltiVec on PPC.

I actually bought my DTLA drive, also a 30GB IIRC, on accident. Quickly looked through a pile of IDE hard drives at the VCF swap meet in 2022 and bought the lot. Only after I got back that I realized one was a DTLA. Health tested it and it's about perfect - 1 reallocated sector.

 

[Byrd]

Well for now they are.

Am offering an opinion to the OP, that might differ from yours. I’ve held out for years to go solid state in a lot of my collection, and noting the good drives remain to be some Quantum models.

 

[s_pupp]

Seagate Barracuda fast scsi 50 pin drives from around the year 2000 work well, are quite reliable, and work fine with the internal SCSI-1 of a PowerMac 8600.

 

[cheesestraws]

Well for now they are.

Got bad news for you: all of this is 'for now'. Forecasting the lifetimes of spinning discs has never been a particularly precise science, and it is less so now. You just have to assume all of this stuff is going to fail sooner rather than later, and if it doesn't, that's a nice surprise.

 

[demik]

SCA drives are working fine with a real adapter like the one @max1zzz build.

But like other said, 50 pins are a safer bet

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Am offering an opinion to the OP, that might differ from yours. I’ve held out for years to go solid state in a lot of my collection, and noting the good drives remain to be some Quantum models.

Yeah I here you. All I'm saying is that any drive with a rubber bumper is doomed dead eventually. And yeah that goes for any old hard drive, but the Quantums will all expire, regardless of the condition of the heads or media itself. That's a fact. I'll bet though that if it wasn't for those bumpers they'd be among the most reliable, as you've seen from the newer drives. Shame really, they sound real nice when working too.

Got bad news for you: all of this is 'for now'. Forecasting the lifetimes of spinning discs has never been a particularly precise science, and it is less so now. You just have to assume all of this stuff is going to fail sooner rather than later, and if it doesn't, that's a nice surprise.

Very very true.

 

[Phipli]

rubber bumper is doomed dead eventually

Not a certainty. Different rubbers and rubberised plastics deteriorate in different ways. It wouldn't be too bad if it dried and crazed.

It even varies between batches. It was convention to test rubber suspension components regularly to ensure that the properties didn't change between batches. For us, it was generally deflection under load and creep that mattered, but I think going gooey would be because... Too much of... The chemical I can't remember the name of... Was used.

I once had some bubble wrap that had been made with too much of whatever the chemical was and it turned any rubber it touched into soup by offgassing the stuff.

If you really care, I can ask the chemist that specialised in polymers I used to work with... But I suspect I've already rambled too much.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Yeah I guess time will tell in the end. I mean some ProDrives are still going strong despite the mass death of them we've seen, and storage conditions wouldn't account for that much because they're sealed.
The only Quantum drives I've got are my aforementioned Daytona that had melted rubber, a Bigfoot TX series, and a Fireball out of a G3 iMac. The latter two are still working.

I wouldn't chance a mid 90s one myself for any important long-term setup myself, but that as Byrd pointed out is just my opinion.

 

[Phipli]

Yeah I guess time will tell in the end. I mean some ProDrives are still going strong despite the mass death of them we've seen, and storage conditions wouldn't account for that much because they're sealed.
The only Quantum drives I've got are my aforementioned Daytona that had melted rubber, a Bigfoot TX series, and a Fireball out of a G3 iMac. The latter two are still working.

Funny thing, I've never had a Quantum drive fail... I have .. at least 4.

One has a fault with the control board, but it does still work.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Are those 4 mid 90s or older? If so then that is quite lucky!