wilson@rocky.UUCP (12/04/87)
Being on a student's budget, I am looking into the possibility of building my own hard drive. Can someone mail me the references to the two MacTutor articles on the subject? I would also be _very_ interested in hearing from others who have completed this project: what difficulties did you run across, would you recommend it, and how does the drive stack up to commercial ones (speed, noise, etc)? Finally, is there a PD or shareware device driver anywhere so I wouldn't have to write my own? Thanks ever so much in advance, Randy wilson@rocky.stanford.edu
kwallich@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Ken Wallich) (12/07/87)
>Being on a student's budget, I am looking into the possibility of >building my own hard drive. [...] I would also be _very_ >interested in hearing from others who have completed this project: >what difficulties did you run across, would you recommend it, and how >does the drive stack up to commercial ones (speed, noise, etc)? >Finally, is there a PD or shareware device driver anywhere so I >wouldn't have to write my own? I bought a CDC WrenIII 160 meg drive for ~1800, bought some ribbon cable, and some connectors a a couple different electronic supply houses (no one seems to have everthing you need :-), plugged it in, powered up my machine, used the formatter described in the MacTutor articles you mentioned (Someone gave me the code, lots of stuff to type in yourself) and it worked!. I am still looking for a decent external box to put it into (It's in a MacII, so I can sorta use it without one for a while, but if you can afford to do some running around, and you don't mind the "hobbiest look", you'll save a bundle. Also, my drive is FAST (16.5ms), and amazingly quiet. Note that the less expensive CDC WrenII drives are less fast (not sure, but mabey around 26ms?), but are just as quiet and reliable. -------------------- Ken Wallich *My views are mine, and mine alone* Consultant "Slimey? Mud Hole? my HOME this is!" DCI kwallich@hpsmtc1.HP.COM @Hewlett Packard ...hplabs!hpsmtc1!kwallich "Why am I soft in the middle, when the rest of my life is so hard? - P.Simon"