MAXG@SUVM.BITNET (06/21/88)
In reference to the June 14 message asking about clone hard drives for the Atari, there is an article coincidentally about that very topic in the new, i.e. July 1988, issue of STLog. The article is called "Frankendrive". Based on what the article says, it looks like you can put together your own hard drive...although I'm not convinced it is worth it. The guy put together a 30mg hard drive...the drive itself cost $265, and the price of the whole thing together ended up being $636.
zzkj@gos.ukc.ac.uk (Z.Z.K.Johannes) (06/25/88)
Well, if you want a large capacity hard drive and don't want to pay mega-pounds
for it, why not try third party SCSI drive vendors. For example, last time I
looked, a Supra 60Mb hard drive cost 1700 pounds including VAT. However, a
60Mb SCSI drive with 28ms access and autoparking cost me 800 pounds excl vat.
(And I wasn't even looking around for price, I bought it from the first place
that could supply me with a SCSI tape streamer). The cost of the power supply
(a good switcher with a fan) and having it cased cost me 350 pounds (both the
hard drive and the streamer needed their own cases and power supplies so halve
the price if you only need the drive - this halving is an assumption). This cost
included all labour and testing as I did't have the time (or the inclination) to
do it myself. So, about 950 pounds for a SCSI drive, but the ST doesn't have
SCSI you say. However, Supra sell their ST->SCSI card for around 80 pounds
including software. So, for a total of about 1100-1200 pounds including vat you
have a better cased drive and over 500 pounds more in your pocket. I know that
this doesn't help those of you on a low budget, but as a developer, 500 pounds
is enough to buy a spare 520 and a colour monitor.
for those of you interested, these are the suppliers I used:-
ST->SCSI converter:-
Frontier Software, Phone Harrogate (0423) 671400
Hard disk:-
Perex (now called Sintrom Electronics) Phone Reading (0734) 311088.
I sent the converter card to Perex and they installed it in the Hard drive for
me. I found them to be very helpful with my initial queries. The person there
that I dealt with was Mr. Richard Woods.
Disclaimer: I have no financial dealings with either of the above two companies
except as a very satisfied customer. These are my own personal experiences and
I merely assume that others will have an equally good response and as such I
offer no guanantee of the same. So no B*tching at me if anything turns out
wrong for you.
--
ZZKJ - hacking away till it no longer bytes.