#Cheap Hard Disk
4 messages in this thread
If any of you have been looking for an inexpensive Hard Disk solution
without having to build the support electronics from scratch, check this
out.
How's this sound: 48 Meg SCSI Drive for A2000 for $680. I just bought a
Pacific Peripherals Overdrive (SCSI Interface) for $220 from GO Amigo and a
3.5 " 48 Meg ST157N Seagate Hard Disk from Lyco Computers for $430 + tax.
For those who don't know, the Overdrive is a board that plugs into the
A2000 bus and can drive a SCSI drive. Additionally, some 3.5" SCSI Drives
can be mounted to the board like a PC Hard card. The board can be bought
with a Harddrive or without. (With HD lists for about $850-$900).
Setup was pretty easy. Since I bought the Overdrive without a harddisk, I
had to pick up four 6/32 x 1" screws from a hardware store, and some
aluminum spacers from Radio Shack. With these, assembly went quickly. Then
I plugged the board in and booted with the disk that came with the board.
Low level formatting went without a hitch. The Bad Sector Search function
in the automated software had a slight problem. Pacific Peripheral's Tech
Support was excellent (as well as immediate). They told me what to change
in one of the data files on the Drive software (with ed or emacs). It
seems that Seagate has been changing their drive sizes slightly without
changing part #s. After that, I exited the program which then high level
formatted my Hard Disk and then installed a nice startup-sequence (that you
can change).
In conclusion, this board supports Autoboot 1.3 (when Avail.), and seems to
be working fine so far. There are no cuts or jumpers on the PC board (a
good sign!) and installation of the board did not involve rocking the board
in its slot. Additionally, the board is working along side an A2052 2 Meg
board and an A2088 bridgeboard. Good luck.
How about this, two Tandon 10Megs for $20.00 apiece from a Hamfest. Add a
$260 SCSI1000 adapter and an Adaptec 4070 at $135 plus some cables and I
get 20Meg for $485 ! (That's nothing! This guy actually PAID me to take
his hard drive….) -Mike
Sounds pretty good if 20 Meg is enough; however, I felt I needed more since I
am using the 48 Meg for both Amiga and PC sides. Still $485 is a great price,
almost competitive with PCs. One question: what is the access time on the
Tandons? (And does that matter with SCSI?)
All I know about the access time is that it is a lot faster than a disk.
Since these are older style drives I assume that the access time is of the
slower ranges. As for the size of the system, with the setup I have I can add
several more devices in parallel to the SCSI adapter. I already have a 5Meg
cartridge drive I want to put in if I can just figure out the power
requirements. That's the big problem with Flea Market drives, no docs.
-Mike