murakami@m.cs.uiuc.edu (06/08/89)
I have had a SyQuest 555 (44 MB cartridge) drive from GVP for several months. I originally had it installed in a 2-bay external case (from Altex) with a 50-pin Berg to 25-pin Mac-SCSI cable (from Redmond Cable) with the intention to move it around to other machines (the Roland S-550 sampler doesn't support it). It is now installed in the 5 1/4 bay in the 2000 using the dual-drive 50-pin Berg connector from GVP. GVP supplies new ROMs to support the drive - complete with automatic cartridge change sensing - and software for installation (mountlist) and formatting. There is support for autobooting from the cartridge drive (I boot from a Connor 3100). The drive works flawlessly -- I use it for backups, demos, movies, etc. or anything that is large and not frequently used. The major drawback to the drive is that it is noisy (fairly high pitched whine from the spinning platter). But since the cartridge spins up/down fairly quickly, I usually leave it off with a cartridge in the slot and spin it up when needed (fine if you have a separate primary (quiet and sealed) drive. -Gary