tom@iconsys.UUCP (Tom Kimpton) (09/20/88)
First, thanks to all the people who answered my questions
on SCSI to ST-506 controllers.
Ingredients:
$35 1 XT-style case
$60 1 150W power supply
$165 1 Adaptec 4000A SCSI controller (with software)
$21 1 Mac(DB-25)-SCSI cable
$23 1 SCSI-50-pin header cable
$400 80 MB ST-506 Toshiba drive
----
total $704 ~70Mb formatted
Observations:
I purchased the controller (with software) and the first cable from:
Tulin Corporation
2393 Qume Drive
San Jose, CA 95131
(408) 432-9025
and found that I should have bought the second cable from them
as well, as it took 3 weeks to get it locally. The disk control
cable that came with my drive had a 34 pin header connector rather
than the 34 pin edge connector that the Adaptec wanted. The power
supply was DOA. The Adaptec controller card wanted the single hard
drive on unit 0, not unit 1. The formatter had some problems that
some judicious use of ResEdit fixed. So... after about 6 weeks of
finagling around, reading documentation, swapping cables,
building/finding cables, cussing and swearing, it formatted in about
5 minutes and lived happily ever after (so far).
If you attempt the same thing, make sure you get all the right
cables from the beginning! Test the power supply before you
leave the store (I bought mine locally, luckily. I took it back
in and had it swapped in about 5 minutes.). Make sure you have
all the documentation you might conceivably need.
Notes:
With this configuration there is no provision for daisy-chaining
foreign drives. But then again, a second drive is a simple matter of
popping the cover, mounting the drive in the second bay (this was a full
height drive), connecting power, and connecting the control and data
cables (you did get a daisy chain data cable, right?).
One good thing about getting my SCSI-controller cable custom made,
however, was that I made it long enough, and with another connector
on the end. I've got a Teac 20ST SCSI cassette drive that the connector
fits, but that's a future installment.
While I was able to get the formatter to work, I was disappointed
that I had to finagle with it to get it to work. It didn't help that
the manual for it was 4 xeroxed pages that boiled down to:
boot off the disk
select a target from the menu
select a disk from the menu (or edit one, this was fouled up)
format
exit
Tulin adds 4% to credit card orders (but then you don't have to
wait for mail to reach them or checks to clear).
I haven't tested this for speed, but subjectively it seems adequate.
You need to switch on the external power supply before powering up
the Mac. It seems to see that there's something out on the SCSI bus
and tries to poll, before it will continue to boot.
Note this was done on (to) a Mac SE 20HD. Mileage may vary with model.
If you do something like this, and encounter trouble, drop me a
note, or call, and I'll be happy to help (if I can :-).
"tousands an tousands o kilobytes! I fill em, I betcha!"
"Are there any questions? Any answers?"
--
Tom Kimpton UUCP: {uunet,caeco,nrc-ut}!iconsys!tom
Software Development Engineer ARPANET: icon%byuadam.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Icon International, Inc. BITNET: icon%byuadam.bitnet (multi-user acct)
Orem, Utah 84058 PHONE: (801) 225-6888Tony_James_Dellett@cup.portal.com (10/06/88)
Another good controller to use is the SMS/OMTI 3110. A nice controller for 3.5" hard disks. SMS is the company that formerly owned Supermac. I think the controller lists for about $110-130. Tony UseNet tony_james_dellett@cup.portal.com CIS 76117,741 GEnie TDELLETT