M2115 External Drive in great shape for a mere $24 bucks!

[krye]

This little guy has been on my wish list for a while now. They're pretty hard to find. I've only seen 3 or 4 on eBay in the past year and they've all gone for well over $100 bucks. I snagged this 1G model for a mere $24. It's in great shape. There's not so much as a mark on it. It also still has all 4 rubber feet. It does have some yellowing on the front, but only the front. The rest is fine. It should clean up nicely with a quick retr0brite session.

Sorry about the low-quality picture. The white balance is terrible. It's yellow, but not that yellow. I just grabbed a quick shot with the phone as I ran out the door this morning. I'll have to post some better ones when I get home from work tonight.

 

[protocol7]

Nice catch. I loved the look of these.

 

[krye]

I opened the box pretty late last night, so I never even got a chance to plug it in or even turn it on. The seller said he picked it up at an auction or something. Probably a garage sale more likely. He said he knew nothing about it and couldn't even test it. Probably not even an Apple user. He probably just grabbed it seeing the Apple logo and figured he could get a buck for it.

I hope it works!

Anyway, I was just wondering what machine this was made to compliment. It was made in 1997. (Date code is Apr '97). Looking at this graphic on Wikipedia:

I appears that the 5600, 6500, 7600, 8600, 9600 lines were all around in April of 1997. However, the only machine that I can see that it really matches the look and feel of is the 6400.

7300 and up are just too "boxy".

I think one of Apple's main problems in the late 90s was the huge array of machines and lines that they had, with no real synergy between them. It was like a free-for-all.

Anyone have an opinion?

 

[Cory5412]

It would be interesting to know if that drive, which if I remember correctly was manufactured by LaCie for Apple, was even designed by Apple, or if they just said "oh whatever, put our logo on something that looks nice."

In part because there were so many machines, it probably wasn't designed to match a specific one, as much as just be a piece of hardware with the Espresso design language, like any of the printers, scanners, cameras, or what-have-you Apple was building (or contracting, as in the case of at least the QuickTake 200) at the time.

As far as the machines Apple was building -- don't forget their three unrelated laptop lines.

In all, Apple had something like fourteen or fifteen models, and you're not wrong when you say that it was really too much for Apple to handle. One of the first things Jobs did when he got back was to kill almost all of the machines they were making, bringing the line-up to PowerMac G3 (DT/MT/AIO), iMac, PowerBook G3, and in 1999 -- iBook.

Arguably if you count configurations, and move forward a few years (when there were things like iMac/iMac DV/iMac DV SE going on) -- Apple eventually started making a lot more machines again, but you can almost always distill it back to "is this prosumer or is this consumer? is this a desktop or a laptop?"

 

[spiceyokooko]

Just seeing that Performa 6400 gives me the eebie jeebies!

As in my opinion that machine was probably the worst pile of donkey doo doo Apple ever produced. To work on it was an absolute nightmare, build quality was rubbish and typical cheap junk made for the home consumer.

I also disagree that the Apple HD was built to match it, the only curved part is vertical, the Performa curves are generally horizontal. The HD was probably built to match machines a couple of years earlier than 97, so look at 95ish machines as it was probably built to extend the life of older machines, not necessarily to complement existing or current machines at the time it was launched.

And yes, during this time Apples product line up was all over the place, far too many machines with only slight differences between them. The 90's wern't a great time for Apple generally.

 

[krye]

Yes, agreed, looks like it matches machines from the early 90s. That's why I put it next to the CC for the picture. It looks kind of silly next to my PM5200.

I'll crack it open tonight when I get out of work and see what drive is inside.

 

[krye]

Hey, if anyone else is interested, someone just posted 2 of these on eBay. 5 days to go. The price will go up at the end.

eBay 1

eBay 2

 

[krye]

As promised, updated pics.....

It's crazy how the yellowing is mostly on the front and then fades away along the top. It should be a quick and easy retrobrite session.

It still has all 4 rubber feet. Always a plus.

Still has all the connector clips and the ports are clean and not all chewed up.

The drive inside is a 1G Quantum. The power supply is made by LiteOn. I don't know if that means they just made the power supply, or if they made the whole thing.

I hooked it up to my CC and fired it up. It came right up no problem.

The drive was clean too. Probably the first 2nd-hand drive I'ver ever obtained that was wiped by the previous owner.

I'm very happly with this score. Can't wait to dip it! It's going to look brand new!

 

[spiceyokooko]

I have some power adapters from that era made by LiteOn so I'd venture a guess that they only made the power supply. Given that it's an Apple branded made by Quantum drive in there, I would think the external casing was designed and built by Apple.

 

[krye]

That's what I thought, but the general consensus is that it was OEM'd by LaCie. I've never seen it stated as fact.

Maybe Apple supplied them with the drives. I work for a medical device manufacturer. There's some products that we sell that we don't make in house. We OEM them out to other vendors, but we receive in all the materials, inspect them from the suppliers, and then send them to the OEM manufacturer to build. We even send them the boxes and manuals to package them.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

I think retrobrite might be bad for the inside of the plastics - I believe they have a reddish sprayed on EMF shield paint that you probably don't want to dissolve.

 

[krye]

I don't think that paint is going to come off too easily. It'll be a quick dip in a weak solution. I'll keep my eye on it . Maybe I'll attempt to laminate the inside of the enclosure with some tape or something to minimize the exposure to the solution.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

All but one of your pics are unavailable in the last post. The only one I can see ATM is:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7277/7546372780_8b5b6a1a16_b.jpg

You might want to upload them as attachments here, that's best as they won't disappear in the future.

I'll put in another vote for it matching the Performas and Espresso LCs. It might have been a reaction to customer complaints about the "slow" IDE drives coming from the folks who equated SCSI performance on Macs with REAL Implementations of SCSI and its speed advantages in Wokstations.

Silly rabbits . . . :

Sounds like a great time to try the spray bottle approach rather than dipping your front bezel.

 

[krye]

Weird, they were there this morning. I just checked flickr and they're still there.

Anyway, here's a link to the gallery: M2115

Spray bottle? Maybe. A thick gel might be a good idea too. I'd hate to use this as the test-bed for a failed process. Better stick with what I'm familiar and have experience with.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

You could test it on a small area, for example a screw tab. Submerging the plastic, if possible, would probably give you the most even results. I'd like to know too actually - I have one of these that's really yellow.

I'm sorry to say but those aren't the original feet. The ones on there actually are very useful though, I should do something like that with mine. I have never seen the original feet for these drives, they must come off really easily. I have 3 of these drives actually, and while one of them has non-yellowed marks where the feet used to be, None of them came with one single foot.

 

[techknight]

I have the 4G version of that drive, which I repaired from stiction. Its definately a LaCie drive, as thats what the one I have is. And its got the LaCie version of silverlining installed, so the drive had never been reformatted or repartitioned.

 

[krye]

Dang, and there was me thinking I got lucky with the feet. I should have known something was up with them being so clean.

 

[krye]

I finished retr0briting the M2115. Since something weird happened to the links to my pics on flickr, I'll upload another before and after shot:





The white-balance is a little off on the "after" shot, but you get the idea. It looks as good as new.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

That looks great. What happened to the paint on the inside of the plastic? Were you able to avoid getting retrobrite on it?