sbulmahn@yoyodyne.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Dr Thrasher) (10/23/90)
I have a mac serial HD20 drive, and it has been suggested that I get it upgraded to SCSI. There is a board called the WSI made by PCPC that replaces the logic board in the HD20 and is supposed to make it into SCSI. Has anyone done this before? If so, does that make the drive into a true SCSI devive, or does it just make it "interface" to the SCSI port? I would like to be able eventually to connect the serial drive to a SCSI computer such as a Mac ][ or an Apple][ gs. Thanks, Scott Bulmahn sbulmahn@yoyodyne.ncsa.uiuc.edu --
wnn@ornl.gov (Wolfgang N. Naegeli) (10/23/90)
In article <1990Oct23.015930.19587@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> sbulmahn@yoyodyne.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Dr Thrasher) writes: > I have a mac serial HD20 drive, and it has been suggested that I get it upgraded > to SCSI. There is a board called the WSI made by PCPC that replaces the > logic board in the HD20 and is supposed to make it into SCSI. Has anyone > done this before? If so, does that make the drive into a true SCSI devive, > or does it just make it "interface" to the SCSI port? I have seen and worked with several of these converted HD20s. My experience has been mostly negative. The service technicians told me they had a variety of difficulties during installation, with some of the drives not working at all, and one or two even getting damaged in the process, apparently by faulty PCPC components. The converted drives are much faster than before, but the drive's rather slow inherent access time can't be changed. It's the data transfer rate that gets improved. Unfortunately, most of these drives have not been very reliable, developing disk errors that required frequent reformatting, occasionally irrecoverable data loss. After reinitialization, the drive diagnostics show no media faults or other problems, but in a matter of days or weeks they can get corrupted again. With hard disk price down as low as they are now, I don't think it's worth investing any more money into a serial HD20. Get a new SCSI drive (40Meg minimum) and use the old one for infrequently used files or as a backup device in its reliable serial mode. Wolfgang N. Naegeli President, MacClique--East Tennessee Macintosh Users Group Internet: wnn@ornl.gov Bitnet: wnn@ornlstc Phone: 615-574-6143 Fax: 615-574-6141 QuickMail (QM-QM): Wolfgang Naegeli @ 615-574-4510
eaw@Alliant.COM (Eric Woudenberg) (10/24/90)
(Wolfgang N. Naegeli) writes: >(Dr Thrasher) writes: >> I have a mac serial HD20 drive, ... >> ... There is a board called the WSI made by PCPC that ... >> is supposed to make it into SCSI. > >I have seen and worked with several of these converted HD20s. My >experience has been mostly negative. ... >Unfortunately, most of these drives have not been very reliable, developing >disk errors that required frequent reformatting, occasionally >irrecoverable data loss. >After reinitialization, the drive diagnostics show no media faults or >other problems, but in a matter of days or weeks they can get corrupted >again ... My father did this upgrade to his HD20. While this does make it into a true SCSI drive, the cretinous formatting software that PCPC provides does not allow you to type in the flaws from the defect list sticker on the side of the drive. The *only* way it maps out bad spots is by doing read/write excercise passes. Needless to say, a sure loser. I called PCPC and told them that this was not going to cut it and I needed either (1) A real formatting program or (2) Some minimal SCSI info so I could format it myself. We (my father) settled on (3), sending them $50 and the drive so that they could format it at the factory. It worked fine after that. I agree with Wolfgang, at today's prices a WSI is barely worth it. (I bet there are some 512K mac folks who would buy an HD20 for $100). Eric Woudenberg
bkuo@girtab.usc.edu (Benjamin Kuo) (10/24/90)
There's only one thing with that. The price of giving it SCSI (I think I priced it around or above $100 last time I checked) isn't really worth it, considering the rock bottom prices on SCSI drives now available. All the addition does is add the firmware for SCSI to the drive, (basically adding a SCSI controller and using a serial drive)... Considering how serial drives haven't been in production for awhile, I'd assume it is old, too--old enough that it's been used heavily and you'll benefit from buying a new drive. (magnetic media has a rather short lifespan...)