Hard drive advice

[BadGoldEagle]

Hi all 

I'm going to replace my internal SE/30 HD with a period correct (more or less) SCSI 50-pin HD.

I do not want more than 2GB on that hard drive. I know there's a way to "hide" partitions, it was probably explained over and over on this forum...

I need advice from you guys because I want to get the best HD for my bucks. I'm looking for something silent, fast and reliable. The ideal HD in other words 

Could you recommend a brand in particular?

I searched on eBay but they are all too expensive for me. I noticed this Computer store in Corvallis, Oregon. They have a LOT of new/reconditioned HDs, here's the link http://www.computerpartsgalore.com/drives-scsi.htm

The one in my SE/30 is a Fujitsu and I'm quite happy with it.

I've never heard horror stories about Fujitsus and Western Digitals. Maybe not a lot of people have those drives! They were not standard on any Macintosh.

Oh and I should probably get an SCSI2 drive. SCSI3 drives won't work will they?

 

[johnklos]

Any of the SCSI to IDE adapters with a CompactFlash would be ideal - no moving parts, less heat, less power draw. The SCSI to SD card adapters are good, too.

SCSI is backwards compatible, so SCSI-3 is fine so long as it is terminated properly.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Hey

I'm planning to use an SCSI2SD in my Mac Portable. But I want the SE/30 to look quite original. So I'd prefer to use an actual HD.

I saw a Seagate drive on this list that looks good. It's SCSI 3 so slightly younger (less problems I think) and probably quieter. It's "only" $64.

It's not the cheapest. But I don't know if that's the right choice yet.

Please I'd like feedback from people who have a 3rd party HD. I know some early Quantums in SEs were quite loud.

 

[Elfen]

I'm planning to use an SCSI2SD in my Mac Portable. But I want the SE/30 to look quite original. So I'd prefer to use an actual HD.

Using a CF or SD to SCSI adaptor does not change it's appearance. It is a functional SE\30. It will even function better than before. Where's why:

1) - Hard drives over 500MB tend to run hotter than the original drive that were in there in 1988. A lot hotter.

2) - Hard drives over 500MB takes more current to run as they spin faster. This adds to the strain of the SE\30 Power Supply.

This means that the SE\30 will have a shorter life, even if you recapped your logic board, your analog board will suffer the most.

Another point to think about is where are you going to get such a drive? Drives of these sizes are no longer made. In fact anything under 50GB is no longer being made. So much of the drives you will find are NOS Drives - NOS being "New Old Stock" or stock drives that did not sell and put into storage. on some shelf somewhere. So they are New-Unused drives. But there are several problems with that.

1) Head/Platter Stiction. Sitting around not spinning, the heads will get stuck to the platters. It's not of matter that it did or didn't, It's a matter of When they did or when they will.

2) The lubrication on the bearings (on the platter spindles and the heads' axle) would have deteriorated to either a mushy gel, a crystalline solid that will shatter to a fine dust inside the drive when the bearings break free. At this point the bearings will be nothing more than metal on metal and they will quickly wear out.

And how do you know that these drive are "New"? It is not like they have a digital Odometer on them. You can not tell without ripping them apart and microscopically analyzing the parts for minute wear. I can do that - give me a 1/2 million lab to figure it out! But chances are you will be getting a used drive that somebody probably ripped part at one time or another, you wont be able to tell if they did. It will definitely have "high mileage" on it and doomed to failure at "Who knows when."

Though a CF or SD to SCSI adapter is not cheap, averaging $150 on ebay, CF and SD cards are fairly cheap. You want something under a GIG, it would be around $10. And you can get new CF card from 32megs to 4GB and a new SD Cad from 1GB to 4GB as they are still being made.

Since a CD or SD to SCSI adapter and card is electronic and has no moving parts, it takes very little power to run it. They do not heat up. They do no stress out your power supply or analog boards. So your SE\30 will definitely last longer. And it will run faster as there is no buffers or signals to process mechanically.

Personally, I have a SE\30 and a Classic II I'm saving for a CF to SCSI adapter. The drives in them are older than the younger members of this forum, so I know that it is a matter of time as to when they will fail, not if. The same with my other Macs (you can see my list below), starting with my Mac IIci with the 040 Daystar Accelerator. That machine I originally hacked to have 2 hard drives!

But the choice is yours.

 

[bibilit]

Another option will be to go for 68 pin Hard Drive, with adapter, has been discussed largely on this forum.

Ok, those will run hotter and will strain the PSU, but in the other hand will have the same form factor as the original one (or close) and let's face it a SE/30 it's not the kind of computer you will use on a daily basis... just my two cents  :b&w:

 

[CelGen]

I forget the name of the series but there was a model of Quantum drive in the 100-250mb range that was amazing. Most of the later macs had something like it fitted either with Apple's firmware or rebranded by someone else like Lacie. They don't fit the compact mac/ Macintosh II drive bracket perfectly but they can be made to fit with a drill/file.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Hi Elfen

First of all, it's good to have you back on 68kmla. I head about your trip to the hospital and stuff. I'm glad you're all right and I must thank you about your seizable   message (seize of the message -- hard drives?), it takes time to type it. You must be tired and all.

I know it's probably not a great choice to buy a second hard drive. I will have a rethink. You see I wanted to own a computer and use it as if we were in 1989. The SE/30 would have been brand new at that time. I have two cards, an accelerator and a color video card. They are period correct. And I think a SCSI2SD will look out of place among those two. But then, ya know, I prefer having a working computer than a broken one, who doesn't? 

salut Bibilit, 

Yeah that could be another option. Those HDs are a lot newer than the ones I was thinking about. But they could be a good compromise.

Who told you that I'm not using this SE/30 on a daily basis ? I'm using it at least twice a week! 

I remember the shop I took the mobo to to have it recapped. I didn't know Uni could do that at the time. The guy was staggered and said I should get a newer computer. He must have thought it was my main machine lol

In all seriousness though,

I'm going to use this computer for my studies. It will be my version of the Retr0challenge. I'm a Mechanical Engineering student, so CAD like Solidworks or CATIA won't run on this for sure but I could produce exel and word documents and even print them with a Imagewriter II if I can get a cheap one.

Office hasn't evolved much. (it still looks awful compared to iWork IMO) But I bet they couldn't tell the difference.

I'll give that a try one day.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Oh and I forgot to mention

The new "socketed" Mobo (Daystar Powercache-ready) and my Sony PSU are off to Uni's to get new caps. The Analogue board remains completely original tho, for now at least

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Don't you think it will be too damn fast? Running 7.1 with 50MHz accelerator and SCSI2SD?

And that's before I add some more RAM !

I want it to be usable, but I still want it to look vintage.

 

[Elfen]

CelGen - Those are the Quantum Fireball Hard drives. And they fail at a drop of a hat due to that rotting rubber on the inside of the drive and the head getting stuck on it. But if you can fix that, then maybe there is a chance to keep using one.

BadGoldEagle - who is going to look inside the machine? Antiques Road Show? "Well I see, John, that everything here is period except for the hard drive. Here you are using CF with a SCSI Adaptor to make it functional. That drops the value $5000...." (Note: No disrespect to you!)

Period Drives for the Mac SE & SE\30 were those dreaded Rodine, Conner, Seagate, and Maxstor drives that have the stepper head motor on the outside, which were less than 50MB in size. Later on with the LC II and other systems, the SE & SE/30s and Mac IIcx & IIci, they got the Quantum Drives with 50 to 100MB. They fail too.

You need to balance out what you want. I see this is a very nice machine - a Day Star Accelerator and a color video card - NICE! But as for looks, the bracket that the SCSI Adapter has fits the hard drive bracket in the computer. And if you are good with a dremel tool, you can gut out a dead hard drive and put the CF/SD adapter in that.

The thing is, what are you planning for this SE\30? There lies your answer as to what you should get. The machine would not be "Too Fast." Speed is in the eye of the beholder. With my Mac IIci with the DayStar 040 50MHz accelerator, it takes 30 seconds to do a memory test and a couple minutes to Boot. Without the accelerator, it is over a minute for the ram test and more than 3 minutes to boot. And that's just booting. If you have a Mac Classic - do a ROM Disk Boot, and that is how fast a CF or SD to SCSI adapter should be. Applications and data will load up faster, but that is not a concern.

But If Speed Is An Issue, use a CF to SCSI adapter and use a 100X or slower CF. At 100X, it is about the same speed as a hard drive in terms of data transfers. 75X would be equal to those older slower drives. And at these speeds, you can get them at the 32MB to 256MB size ranges which is period for that time. There are bigger 75X CF if you need more space.

There is more to post, but I'll leave it up to here. Maybe next post.

 

[Elfen]

In all seriousness though,

I'm going to use this computer for my studies. It will be my version of the Retr0challenge. I'm a Mechanical Engineering student, so CAD like Solidworks or CATIA won't run on this for sure but I could produce exel and word documents and even print them with a Imagewriter II if I can get a cheap one.

Office hasn't evolved much. (it still looks awful compared to iWork IMO) But I bet they couldn't tell the difference.

I'll give that a try one day.

You can run AutoCAD, TurboCAD, DesignWorks and several other CAD an drawing programs on this set you have, as long as your System and RAM is good with it (Some want System 6, others System 7, all with 4MB or more of RAM). The problem I see as a possible issue is file compatibility with modern programs compared with the older ones.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Thank you Elfen for your posts.

What I meant by too fast is that I don't want it to boot in like 2 secs, I saw on Youtube (sadly I can't find the link anymore) a Mac SE with a 020 Accelerator. Maybe the video was sped up but it was blisteringly fast. You couldn't keep up with it It opened its many partitions (at least 3 or 4) all at once in less than a second. It was running 7.1 as well.

My SE/30 albeit running 7.5 (which is slowing down the computer) opens its hard drive in 2 or 3 secs. I want it to be faster but not like my Flash-based Macbook Pro. 

What you said about the dremel thing is interesting. If my Conner HD from the Portable is really dead and if there's nothing I can do to save it. I'll try this.

I doubt the Antiques Road Show will ever feature my SE/30 on one of their shows   Maybe in 50 years? lol

I understand now that I have all the info I need. I will have to chose between a 68 pin HD or the SCSI2SD or SCSI2CF. I'll let you know.

 

[Elfen]

I just lost a large response from a system crash. Damn. So I'll do a short one here.

Just recently I see an episode of Antique Road Show with a low serial numbered old Mac 128K on it and the guy appraised it for $4000 as is. If it could turn on (he forgot his power cable- LOL!) and had the original floppy disks and booted, it would have been appraised for $5000 to $8000. Another Mac they appraised was a Mac SE in a clear case from Apple themselves, it was a demonstration and research model where only 200 or so were made. it appraised for $10,000 in bootable and working order (they did not turn it on for some reason). The 'owner' said he got it from an estate sale from some Apple employee a few years ago for couple hundred dollars. Damn!

I had a Mac SE\20 (a Mac SE with a '020 accelerator at 25MHz), and I will say that is was wickedly fast. But it was not so fast that it was terrible. It was more like a Mac IIci or LC III. Many of the routines that it does are either in ROM or in RAM. My Mac IIci with the DayStar 50MHz '040 is as fast and at times faster than my Q950! And it is definitely faster than my Mac IIfx which has a 40MHz '030. But putting an accelerator into the machine, it is no longer stock. It is faster (and better) than the original machine it started out with. Everything on it will be faster on it. So depending on the accelerator, it will be as fast as a Mac IIfx and probably as fast as a Quadra 900/950 as these were the fastest 68K Macs around. So that video you saw is up to par with what your Mac SE\30 would be doing.

The CF or SD to SCSI adapter is just an option. Since a CF has a micro IDE interface, you can get a IDE/ATA to SCSI Adapter or Bridge and use a IDE/ATA Drive. They still make 20GB IDE/ATA hard drives but do you need one for a SE\30? Anything smaller would be considered as NOS equipment.

 

[Tiptoeturtle]

I have here a Quantum Prodrive LPS which is about 50MB, the label on the drive says 6 Watts

Another Quantum Prodrive LPS here is 250MB and has on the label 5V/12V 500mA/600mA, so perhaps that means 9 Watts

 

[Elfen]

I have here a Quantum Prodrive LPS which is about 50MB, the label on the drive says 6 Watts

Another Quantum Prodrive LPS here is 250MB and has on the label 5V/12V 500mA/600mA, so perhaps that means 9 Watts

A Solid State Drive like a CF in a SCSI Adapter would only take 1/2 a watt.

The SE Power supply is already stressed by powering up the analog board, the CRT Tube, the mother board and things on it like an add-on board, the drives, and the keyboard and mouse. Many people are in the belief that it was designed to handle such a load, when in fact it was designed to just barely handle such a load. So the system is already stressed out as soon as it comes out of the box.

 

[Tiptoeturtle]

[SIZE=10pt]Conner 3.5"[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]From the label on an Apple HD 40 SC -[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Conner[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]12V 250mA[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]5V 275mA[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]That could indicate overall power consumption of about -[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]4.4W[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]This Conner drive sounds like it is still functioning, it spins up (on a bench) when given power, makes one click, and then keeps spinning. However I see it has something like a rubberish gasket between the lid/cover and the rest of the assembly, which has me wondering about deterioration of the seal ?   ?     ???[/SIZE]

A Solid State Drive like a CF in a SCSI Adapter would only take 1/2 a watt.

The SE Power supply is already stressed by powering up the analog board, the CRT Tube, the mother board and things on it like an add-on board, the drives, and the keyboard and mouse. Many people are in the belief that it was designed to handle such a load, when in fact it was designed to just barely handle such a load. So the system is already stressed out as soon as it comes out of the box.

Thanks for mentioning some posts back about how the power consumption generally increases with drive capacity and rotation speed. I had incorrectly assumed the later larger drives would use less power because they had smaller components on the PC board.

So to nurse the power supply in an SE etc it is better to use an older smaller hard disk instead of swapping a bigger hard disk into an SE out of a later model (and I am also planning to fit a SCSI2SD).

I also found over the weekend that the current rating on the Irwin XL20 SE accelerator is 2.5A. It is not clear if that is 2.5A at 12V or 2.5A at 5V or some mixture, anyway, installing the Excelerator likely adds about another 12W (or more) to the load on the SE power supply.

 

[techknight]

If the Conner still works, I recommend removing and re-doing the seal before it liquefies and kills the drive. 

 

[Tiptoeturtle]

If the Conner still works, I recommend removing and re-doing the seal before it liquefies and kills the drive. 

This came about at my end because, or thanks to the circumstance that, I saw some video, perhaps on Youtube, and perhaps it was about this very same phenomenon with Conner seals, I wasn't sure when I was typing yesterday. I definitely want to keep that Conner going, at least until I get it back into a Mac and see what software (mostly software pre-1992) I have on it, and not yet on some Mac HFS CD. Isn't that great, if I had been here a year ago I think there would not have been your video online, and forewarned is forearmed.

I would like to ascertain what is the best option in synthetic modern polymer sheet material to cut out a new template of the seal / gasket.