MrFahrenheit
Well-known member
Always wanting to subject myself to more complications and potential problems, I found and purchased an Olympus 230mb external SCSI magneto optical drive, brand new unused. I remember seeing these types of drives advertised in Macworld in the 90s and drooling over their modern technology (like I how drooled over a IIci when I was using a lowly Plus).
So I purchased one and it’s on the way. It will accompany my vintage storage solutions including Zip and Jaz.
Presently I only have one easy method for moving files downloaded over to my vintage Macs. And that is a USB Zip drive. The solution is slow, but it works. I’ve found Avery labels for the zips and printed nice looking disk labels. It feels and sounds very good (ASMR inserting and using a Zip disk). However 100mb is a bit low for some OS versions. OS 9 barely fits in 100mb as an emergency boot.
I do have the Jaz drive but I wanted something different. Enter the magneto optical drive. Optical technology for reading the data and optical magnetic for writing. Not perfect but seems reliable. At least in principle. I also picked up a pack of 10 brand new unopened 230mb disks for about $1 a disk.
While I wait for this stuff to ship to me I’m anxiously thinking about how it will all work. It seems that these drives and media are RAM and not WORM. Can anyone confirm using one of these types of drives. Can I boot from one?
It looks to me like higher capacity drives are backwards compatible with the 230mb media. Is that true?
I would like a nice solution where I can use a drive on my G4 to write files that I want to use to a disk. How do I find a compatible MO drive to by for that machine, considering it lacks SCSI? Does anyone have any experience with IDE MO drives and their proper operation under Mac OS 9 and 10.4.11?
There are a lot of drives on eBay and a variety of options. Never really touched this medium before so I’m looking to get experience with it.
Ideally I’d have a Jaz drive on my G4 but the options for that are rather expensive.
So I purchased one and it’s on the way. It will accompany my vintage storage solutions including Zip and Jaz.
Presently I only have one easy method for moving files downloaded over to my vintage Macs. And that is a USB Zip drive. The solution is slow, but it works. I’ve found Avery labels for the zips and printed nice looking disk labels. It feels and sounds very good (ASMR inserting and using a Zip disk). However 100mb is a bit low for some OS versions. OS 9 barely fits in 100mb as an emergency boot.
I do have the Jaz drive but I wanted something different. Enter the magneto optical drive. Optical technology for reading the data and optical magnetic for writing. Not perfect but seems reliable. At least in principle. I also picked up a pack of 10 brand new unopened 230mb disks for about $1 a disk.
While I wait for this stuff to ship to me I’m anxiously thinking about how it will all work. It seems that these drives and media are RAM and not WORM. Can anyone confirm using one of these types of drives. Can I boot from one?
It looks to me like higher capacity drives are backwards compatible with the 230mb media. Is that true?
I would like a nice solution where I can use a drive on my G4 to write files that I want to use to a disk. How do I find a compatible MO drive to by for that machine, considering it lacks SCSI? Does anyone have any experience with IDE MO drives and their proper operation under Mac OS 9 and 10.4.11?
There are a lot of drives on eBay and a variety of options. Never really touched this medium before so I’m looking to get experience with it.
Ideally I’d have a Jaz drive on my G4 but the options for that are rather expensive.