Macintosh SE Hard Drive or Floppy

[sciencegirl100]

My SE's HDD died
I want to replace it with either a SCSI2SD, Floppy Emu, or SCSI HDD.
Which is the best for the money and which is the most efficient?

 

[GiGaBiTe]

That fleabay listing is a MFM drive, not a SCSI drive.

You need something like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/322170918859

I'd personally go with a replacement drive to keep it stock. The SD2SCSI will probably be the fastest since there's >1ms access time compared to a traditional hard drive, but you're still throughput limited to 5-10 mb/s of the SCSI bus.

 

[sciencegirl100]

ok, I'll keep my eye on that post, as it's over in 5 days.
Is there anywhere I can get a scsi2sd or similar adapter cheaper?

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I found this but can't vouch for it:

https://www.itead.cc/scsi2sd.html

 

[sciencegirl100]

I found this but can't vouch for it:

https://www.itead.cc/scsi2sd.html

I checked that out, and it seems just right. They list the Macintosh SE/30 as compatible, is there a difference between the Macintosh SE/30 and the Macintosh SE when it comes to their SCSI?

 

[RWallmow]

You can use much more modern SCSI drives on an SE. I have a 9.1GB in my SE, a 36GB in my SE/30, and a 75GB in my Quadra 950, there is no drive capacity limit in their hardware. Narrow SCSI is narrow SCSI, many, though not all, modern ultrawide SCSI drives will clock down and work just fine with cheap $15 pin-adapters.
There is a 2GB partition limit under system 6 and early system 7 releases (you can have as many 2gb parts as you want though), I can't remember for sure but I think it was somewhere around 7.5.3 that you could have up to 2TB partitions, though that's impractical with some other file system limitations like maximum number of files and huge block sizes.

 

[sciencegirl100]

You can use much more modern SCSI drives on an SE. I have a 9.1GB in my SE, a 36GB in my SE/30, and a 75GB in my Quadra 950, there is no drive capacity limit in their hardware. Narrow SCSI is narrow SCSI, many, though not all, modern ultrawide SCSI drives will clock down and work just fine with cheap $15 pin-adapters.
There is a 2GB partition limit under system 6 and early system 7 releases (you can have as many 2gb parts as you want though), I can't remember for sure but I think it was somewhere around 7.5.3 that you could have up to 2TB partitions, though that's impractical with some other file system limitations like maximum number of files and huge block sizes.

I have one of these, I'm worried this isn't right. Can someone verify that these, inside the Mac SE will work?

 

[RWallmow]

I have one of these, I'm worried this isn't right. Can someone verify that these, inside the Mac SE will work?

Looks right to me. For the record I've heard some newer drives may not work on narrow SCSI, but I've not run into one yet, so I've just taken that with a grain of salt.

SCSI being SCSI you will probably have to mess with ID and Termination to get it to recognize and Macs being Macs you will need either 3rd party formatting software or a hacked version of the disk tools http://www.acrpc.net/macos-downloads/

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I have one of these, I'm worried this isn't right. Can someone verify that these, inside the Mac SE will work?

That adapter is to use a SCA-80 SCSI drive (which usually requires a backplane) with 50/68 pin controllers, it won't work for your application.

You need this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331047429194

And while that Cheetah drive will most likely work with some limitations, I wouldn't recommend it. 10k rpm drives are ridiculously noisy and it being inside the tiny Mac SE case is going to create all sorts of annoying harmonics and vibrations.

For the record I've heard some newer drives may not work on narrow SCSI, but I've not run into one yet, so I've just taken that with a grain of salt.

You can't mix HVD SCSI devices with SE/LVD devices or the hardware will be very sad. You'll either blow up the SCSI controller, the drive or both.

 

[RWallmow]

That adapter is to use a SCA-80 SCSI drive (which usually requires a backplane) with 50/68 pin controllers, it won't work for your application.

You need this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331047429194

And while that Cheetah drive will most likely work with some limitations, I wouldn't recommend it. 10k rpm drives are ridiculously noisy and it being inside the tiny Mac SE case is going to create all sorts of annoying harmonics and vibrations.

That Cheetah they linked is a SCA drive, the adapter they linked should be right, the one you linked (and I linked before they linked the drive) are for 68pin drives.

I run Baracuda and Cheetah drives in my SE and SE/30, no ill effects or excess heat, but I don't leave them on 24/7, few hours here and there. If the OP plans to run one 24/7 as a localtalk server or something, I would probably heed your advice and stick with a cooler running drive.

 

[RWallmow]

You can't mix HVD SCSI devices with SE/LVD devices or the hardware will be very sad. You'll either blow up the SCSI controller, the drive or both.

Very true, but HVD is not been terribly commonplace in my IT travels, I don't see much of it out there (maybe I have been lucky), though if you do find some, there are converters for HVD<>SE/LVD, so it CAN be interconnected, just not without converters.

 

[sciencegirl100]

as seen here it's a "SCA-2" or "SCA 80" connector (@RWallmow and @GiGaBiTe were right)
However this adapter that come have linked is for 68-pin, not 80.
The connector on the rear here seems to be right.

 

[NeXT]

Very true, but HVD is not been terribly commonplace in my IT travels, I don't see much of it out there (maybe I have been lucky), though if you do find some, there are converters for HVD<>SE/LVD, so it CAN be interconnected, just not without converters.

I have three machines here which support HVD and came full of HVD drives. All are from HP's PA-RISC midrange and workstation market. They seemed to use it quite heavily because you could run much longer SCSI cables.

 

[RWallmow]

I have three machines here which support HVD and came full of HVD drives. All are from HP's PA-RISC midrange and workstation market. They seemed to use it quite heavily because you could run much longer SCSI cables.

My experience has been entirely x86/68k/ppc with some minimal sparc/sgi, never dealt with any of HP's RISC, or even intels itanium or DEC alpha stuff, so that's all a market I never came across, not what I would call typical desktop environment gear, more specialized market.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

That Cheetah they linked is a SCA drive, the adapter they linked should be right, the one you linked (and I linked before they linked the drive) are for 68pin drives.

Whoops, I was tired and thought it was a 68 pin drive he had.

I run Baracuda and Cheetah drives in my SE and SE/30, no ill effects or excess heat, but I don't leave them on 24/7, few hours here and there. If the OP plans to run one 24/7 as a localtalk server or something, I would probably heed your advice and stick with a cooler running drive.

I was more worried about the vibration and noise being a problem, but now that you mention heat, I'd be a bit concerned for the long run. I have a server with 6 x 10k rpm Cheetah drives and they pull about 90W total or 15W a piece. That's not exactly the kind of stress I'd want to put on a 30 year old machine and power supply.

 

[sciencegirl100]

Whoops, I was tired and thought it was a 68 pin drive he had.



I was more worried about the vibration and noise being a problem, but now that you mention heat, I'd be a bit concerned for the long run. I have a server with 6 x 10k rpm Cheetah drives and they pull about 90W total or 15W a piece. That's not exactly the kind of stress I'd want to put on a 30 year old machine and power supply.

I bought the adapter, it'll come this Saturday.
Ok, I guess if I have to, I'll use a separate power supply for the HDD adapter (and bridge the grounds).

 

[sciencegirl100]

OK, I got the adapter, now how do I configure it?
What SCSI ID do I use and what pins on the adapter or HDD do i need?

 

[dabone]

Ok, just to clarify, the drive you have is a SCA 80 pin (LC on the end of the part number for seagates.)
If this is the case, the drive will draw its power from the adapter, as 80 pin scsi drives are powered with the 80 pin connector, and they also set their ID using the adapter.

If you are using the adapter listed here, https://www.amazon.com/SCA-80-PIN-SCSI-ADAPTER/dp/B0058V1UWS,
then for scsi id 0, leave all the jumpers open. If the drive does'nt spin up, check the motor start jumpers.
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/686765/Seagate-St336706lw.html?page=50#manual

Later,
dabone

 

[Zippy Zapp]

I have the same adapter as linked above and it works fine in my Macintosh with all the jumpers open, which is the default and with no jumpers on the ID bits it is set to 0.

While these adapters seem to work fine, some people have said that you need a terminating adapter. I have both types and they seem to work equally well. Does anyone know if it really matters? Aren't these Seagate drives automatically terminated as I don't see any jumpers for termination or is this not what the terminating adapter is? Ahh SCSI voodoo.

 

[sciencegirl100]

I put a jumper on the "Enable Remote Motor Start" pins, when I boot, it doesn't ask me to initialize it.
My boot disk is an InterPoll installer, maybe that's why??
When I run "HD SC Setup" it says unable to locate a suitable drive connected to the SCSI port. :/
I've tried various combos of jumper settings, same thing:

When I boot the SE, the activity LED does flash, but that's the only good sign I get.

EDIT:
I've check these out, still no luck:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vintage-macs/t2XjLMUW2SM
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/17127-ultra320-scsi-for-macs-other-server-interfaces/
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/17253-scsi-ultra-3-for-older-mac/