two internal Hard Drives in LC

[bproulx12]

anyone tried adding a 2nd scsi drive to their LC with a scsi multiple drive cable (ribbon)?

 

[tomlee59]

I'm not sure if you're talking about the ribbon cable inside the LC, or one inside an external enclosure. In either case, it helps to know that the scsi bus is a truly parallel bus. There are no half-twists in a few lines, etc., to connect additional drives.

The only issues are:

1) The LC's internal power supply isn't very strong, and adding a second drive's load to it is likely to push it over the edge. So if you intend to squeeze a second drive into the LC's pizza box enclosure, the power supply's weakness may prevent you from succeeding.

2) Getting a second drive to fit may be a bit challenging (again, assuming that you are talking about fitting everything into the LC itself).

3) Need to select unique scsi id, take care of terminations, etc. (the usual scsi stuff).

 

[porter]

The title says "external", are these two drives outside or inside the LC box? What is powering them?

 

[bproulx12]

thanks, edited the title, not worried about the top, and was going to add a psu, I know sounds ugly

 

[porter]

thanks, edited the title, not worried about the top, and was going to add a psu, I know sounds ugly

Yup, I would just swap in a bigger drive.

 

[Mike Richardson]

They made two PSUs for the LC pizza box series. I think one is a little bit better, maybe 10W better. You could try using that one and it might be enough. Avoid using a PDS card since that takes a little bit of power.

 

[LCGuy]

Yeah, the first PSU that the LCs used was a TDK. It was 50 watts. Then in late 1993ish, they started using another brand, I think it was Delta, they were only 36W. You're best off going with the TDK, if possible - not to mention that most LCs already have them, making them very easy to find if you don't already have one.

 

[bproulx12]

thanks for the suggestions, I do have a TDK.

 

[Franklinstein]

I seem to recall an upgrade of some sort sold online for these machines way back when. It was a larger replacement top and power supply that enabled installation of a second hard disk and/or a CDROM. I thought it was pretty cool and would've purchased one for my Performa 475 about eight years ago if I had any money. Now, however, I don't remember anything about the company or even the product name (and can't find much on Google aside from another forum hit), but I'm sure someone else remembers seeing it. It's fairly pointless, since a Quadra could do all the souped-up LC could and more, but it's kind of interesting all the same.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I seem to recall an upgrade of some sort sold online for these machines way back when. It was a larger replacement top and power supply that enabled installation of a second hard disk and/or a CDROM. I thought it was pretty cool and would've purchased one for my Performa 475 about eight years ago if I had any money. Now, however, I don't remember anything about the company or even the product name (and can't find much on Google aside from another forum hit), but I'm sure someone else remembers seeing it. It's fairly pointless, since a Quadra could do all the souped-up LC could and more, but it's kind of interesting all the same.

http://www.micromac.com/products/lc_pws.html

The company has not updated their page in over 8 years though and would seem to be out of business. It was a really cool upgrade though. I remember some middle school around here had a bunch of LCs souped up with this upgrade.

 

[bproulx12]

Wow that is cool! thanks, wonder if they will answer my email.

 

[Bunsen]

That company has been out of business for a long, long time. Don't hold your breath.

 

[Franklinstein]

Dang, that thing is much more impressive than I remember, turning an LC into sort of a (very) slow desktop-style Quadra 900. Kind of wish I had bought one now.

 

[Scott Baret]

I suppose with a little bit of handywork one could replace the floppy drive with an internal hard drive in an LC. However, you'd be out a floppy drive...and an LC is not an iMac; floppies are crucial on the machine.

I believe, at least in the original LC, a bracket can fit in either side. They designed the left side so it could use an internal floppy drive (a few low-end LCs actually sold with dual floppies just like low-end SEs did) and I'd imagine both sides are identical as far as what brackets they could take.

Find the lowest powered drives possible. I'm not sure if they're the lowest, but I seem to recall the Quantum ProDrive LPS not taking a whole lot of power. Considering the ProDrive LPS was a common stock drive in the LC I'd imagine it doesn't eat up a whole lot of power (unlike those big hulkering drives in the Mac II series).