-
Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.
Mac Plus and External SCSI
- Thread starter beachycove
- Start date
Also, you can use the patched Apple SC HD Setup to format ZIP disks, and the OS will treat it like a regular hard disk. The only disadvantage of this is that ejecting is now a two step process (you must press the physical eject button on the drive after (not before) you've unmounted the disk. Also, there is nothing preventing you from removing the disk before unmounting (unlike the Iomega drivers), so there's a risk of filesystem corruption if you don't follow the proper "order of operations").
Of course, if you're mindful of this one "caveat", it's a very excellent and compatible hard disk solution (this way, it will work with any Macintosh/System Software combination that supports SCSI, and it's easily swappable between other systems, new and old). It's also quite bootable, supporting everything from System 6 through Mac OS 7.6 (I've never tried Mac OS 8.x or 9.x.x, but, given the proper conditions, I don't see why not).
The only possible downfall is that ZIP disks and drives might be a bit less reliable (depending on age and quality of materials) than an equivalent hard disk. The upside of this, however, is that both the disks and the SCSI-based drives (especially the externals) are still relatively plentiful, making replacements fairly easy and affordable to acquire.
I hope this is helpful.
c
p.s. I'd like to note that I tried to replicate this process using JAZ disks (which are similar, but use a different type of disk to increase capacities to 1 to 2 GB), but the drivers are such that I can't replace them with the standard Apple ones, unfortunately (perhaps there's a way around this, but I haven't discovered it yet. In the meantime, the regular JAZ drivers seem to work fine on most models I've tried them on).
Of course, if you're mindful of this one "caveat", it's a very excellent and compatible hard disk solution (this way, it will work with any Macintosh/System Software combination that supports SCSI, and it's easily swappable between other systems, new and old). It's also quite bootable, supporting everything from System 6 through Mac OS 7.6 (I've never tried Mac OS 8.x or 9.x.x, but, given the proper conditions, I don't see why not).
The only possible downfall is that ZIP disks and drives might be a bit less reliable (depending on age and quality of materials) than an equivalent hard disk. The upside of this, however, is that both the disks and the SCSI-based drives (especially the externals) are still relatively plentiful, making replacements fairly easy and affordable to acquire.
I hope this is helpful.
c
p.s. I'd like to note that I tried to replicate this process using JAZ disks (which are similar, but use a different type of disk to increase capacities to 1 to 2 GB), but the drivers are such that I can't replace them with the standard Apple ones, unfortunately (perhaps there's a way around this, but I haven't discovered it yet. In the meantime, the regular JAZ drivers seem to work fine on most models I've tried them on).
Similar threads
