Cheapest storage device solutions for compact mac?

[Tonebender]

I'm currently repairing an SE/30 and an SE FDHD, and I'm considering different ways of improving their data storage capabilities. Especially on the SE FDHD since it lacks a harddrive.

I'm also short on money, and the CF memory card solution seems to be fairly expensive with the SCSI-to-IDE adapter. Are there any cheap routes that I have missed, besides getting a used scsi harddrive?

 

[bibilit]

Zip drive and cartridges ?

 

[Compgeke]

Zip drive is probably the cheapest, but not ideal for internal use. For long term reliability I'd go with the SCSI SD adapters as I'm finding the old SCSI HDDs to be dropping like flies 

You might be able to get away with small size SCA drives (like 9 gig) but with those termination becomes an issue and the terminators aren't the cheapest.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Hi Tonebender,

I can sell you a 50-pin SCSI HD, if you like, but you may find the postage from Switzerland rather high.

If you can get yourself an external SCSI case, with or without SCSI cable, I can send you up a HD. I'll even format it for you and stick on some SSW so that it can boot up. PM me if you are interested.

I'm doing the same with my IIcx at the moment and I feel your pain.

All the best,

aa.

 

[Bunsen]

One solution:  store everything on the SE/30 (with a large enough hard drive or two, Zip, Jaz, whatever), connect a printer cable from it to the SE, and share the drives over Appletalk.  Booting the SE with a Network Tools floppy.

 

[Tonebender]

Good ideas everyone! Zip drive is definitely an option, which I hadn't thought about at all, but a little clunky I guess.

Investing in a SCSI2SD card looks like the smoothest option in the long run; I just need to lay low on the spendings right now.

The Appletalk connection idea is cool! I sorta grew up using Macintosh Classics connected to an Appletalk network at school, so that's a nice nostalgic configuration and a nice way to use both my compact macs simultaneously.

 

[Bunsen]

Well, if you consider the cost of a SCSI2SD as spread across two Macs, it looks a little better

 

[ArmorAlley]

The SCSI2SD is also very good at helping the airflow and heat-management inside the SE/30. Because it is so thin, there is more room for air to flow inside the compact mac, allowing the mac to remain cooler. Because it uses so much less electricity, the components in the PSU are that little cooler.

Added to that, a 64GB micro-SD card was the stuff of Star Trek when the SE/30 was worth $4000...

 

[olePigeon]

Partitioned into 32 2GB partitions, of course.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Well, with an SE/30, you do have a possibility of having Mac OS 8.1 on one of your partitions. As long as you have more than 16MB RAM, it should run, if somewhat slowly. I have Mac OS 8.1 running on my IIfx and it's not at all bad. Now, the IIfx is a tad faster than the SE/30 (40MHz vs 16MHz).

Mac OS 8.1 allows you to format a partition with HFS+ and then it can be any size you wish.

 

[CC_333]

Be advised that one has to patch 8.1 so that it will run on an '030 to make it work (8.1 is not compatible with '030 Macs "out of the box"). I think one may also need to replace the ROMs on the SE/30 with 32-bit clean ones, as I doubt 8.1 would like booting with the stock ROM (it think it may run, but my understanding is that it's far harder to accomplish; someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

c

 

[ArmorAlley]

CC_333 is completely accurate in his comment here. It was amiss of me to mention installation and not to mention the requirement of altering values in the System file with ResEdit. And I completely forgot about the requirement for a 32-bit-clean SIMM ROM.

My apologies for making seem this like less hassle and expense than is actually involved and thanks for the point about the SIMM ROM.

 

[Tonebender]

No problem. I'm not anywhere near installing system 8 yet, and honestly I probably never will. But it's nice to know I have the option -- I didn't know system 8 would work at all on an SE/30.

For now I'm still at recapping the logic board, and when I finally get the thing to boot and run system 6 off a floppy, it's time to start looking for good alternatives to a hard drive.