Mac shell as external drive/ RAID

[beachycove]

Is it possible somehow to use the shell, power supply etc. of a disused machine like, say, a non-booting 9500, as a box for an external RAID?

I have several 18GB scsi drives that I would like to put to good use and no suitable external cases to house them in.

Have others here by any chance worked out a good way of doing this?

 

[Bunsen]

That's a pretty large case. Just how many drives do you have?

The power supply in the 9500 is one of Apple's beefier ones, so you should have no problems with power. First you'll need to look up the pinout of the power supply connector and work out which pins you need to short to start up the PS. Then wire those pins to a switch.

What RAID type are you going to run? IIRC, there is one external SCSI connector cutout on the back of the 9500. You could mount one SCSI connector there, and if you want to avoid cutting the case, use the PCI slot covers as mounting points for any further connectors required.

Internal mounting and cabling is probably best worked out as you go along, and have everything in front of you.

 

[~Coxy]

It's definitely possible, I actually used a 9500 case for this exact purpose.

In mine, I had a FireWire bridge board, a DVD drive and hard disk mounted in the case as normal, and a 6100 PSU at the bottom. Connected it all up, and then plugging the '9500' into a Mac via firewire you would have a nice external drive setup.

If you have the mobo and PSU then you could do a much cleaner version than mine by using the SCSI port. A bit of soldering and it should work nicely.

 

[beachycove]

If you have the mobo and PSU then you could do a much cleaner version than mine by using the SCSI port. A bit of soldering and it should work nicely.

Sorry, no understand. What would need soldered?

 

[bhylak]

Well if you aren't worried about it still turing on, all you would really need is a dremel, and your normal tools like screw drivers, and of course a sledge hammer if you get frustrated!

So you just want to place an external drive in the Mac? Just make a whole from the wire to come out and you might want a small computer fan, heck you could probably wire that into the Macs power supply, with some diodes and the like. (Or a small battery, your choice.) Do you want the drives powered from it as well?

 

[~Coxy]

If you have the mobo and PSU then you could do a much cleaner version than mine by using the SCSI port. A bit of soldering and it should work nicely.

Sorry, no understand. What would need soldered?

You would need to solder the SCSI ribbon cable to a connector on the back, possibly reusing the connecter on the 9500 mobo itself.

Unless you wanted to just have the ribbon trailing out of the PCI slots and into the back of the host computer?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

All you'd need is a Centronics 50 female connector for ribbon cable and a backplane plate for said connector. Then you'll have an actual, for real, non-Apple-borked, SCSI port just like those found on the backs of correctly implemented SCSI peripherals.

We'll forgive IOMEGA for using those Dumb@$$ DB-25 connectors because they did passthrough and switchable termination/partial ID selection on the back of a tiny box! Apple, on the other hand, had no excuse whatsoever, there was plenty of room on the back of even Compact Macs to do a proper job.

Apple finally came close to a proper SCSI implementation with those HUMONGOUS, Horribly Unwieldly, still Dumb@$$ PB SCSI Cables . . .

. . . but we won't go there! )

p.s. When I couldn't find my HD50 <-> DB-25 SCSI Cable to use a ZIP on my QS2000 when I first got it, I rigged up just such a setup. I pulled it out a couple of days ago, when I decided to retire the ZIP Drive in favor of USB Card Readers on all my PCI/USB Compatible Macs. If you'd like I can take and post a piccie of it for you.

 

[Bunsen]

You would need to solder the SCSI ribbon cable to a connector on the back

Not necessarily. You could get a long multiport internal SCSI cable and a new crimpable external connector, and crimp it on. Either with a vice, a proper crimping tool or (if you're feeling particularly bloody minded) your teeth. That's how I got mine on.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

with a vice, a proper crimping tool or (if you're feeling particularly bloody minded) your teeth. That's how I got mine on.

8-o

Whatever! Here's a shot of some of the external Centronics 50 hackage I've done . . .

. . . w/o doing any damage to my incisors/canines . . . :

. . . with an internal SCSI extension cable, and a split cable (for making tight turns & offsets) thrown in for good measure. The C-50 connector w/o the PCI/PC backplane plate on it was the one sticking out of the left side of my DuoDock's lid for many years.

It's not hard to come up with the right configuration.

 

[Quadraman]

Macs should be used as Macs. :approve:

If you want to turn something into a very large hard drive enclosure, there are plenty of old PC towers out there for that. :approve: :approve:

 

[beachycove]

Actually the 9500 case that I had in mind was that of a dead machine, but after posting, I got a seven-drive RAID enclosure in the "mother of all conquests" conquest. But in general, I agree that old Macs should be kept as Macs.

I haven't fired the RAID up yet to find out quite how it is configured, as I do not have the necessary external LVD cable. All in good time....