carlo@zebra.cvs.rochester.edu (Carlo Tiana) (11/19/89)
Here are some more questions from a total Mac novice -- with a lot of faith: I bought a IIci. Now I badly need to put a hard drive in it: I did not buy it as a package because I decided I could do better from a third party. Now I have looked around enough that I am quite confused. -Is there any reason that a drive that works in a IIcx should not work in a IIci? If an ad says it's a drive for a IIcx, can I just assume the ad has not been updated to reflect the newer model's appearance? -Should I prefer a 3.5" drive over a 5.35" drive for any reason (or for that matter, the other way round)? -Does the software that comes with the drive (if any) matter? Ie do specific drives come with their own drivers, and should I be careful that I get a 'good' driver, or are they the kind of thing you plug in and up pops the icon? If not, can I buy a cheap drive for it somewhere with a lousy driver and a better driver from somewhere else? -If I put a 3.5" drive in the Mac now, can I put another internal drive in later? I opened up a IIx with an internal 5.25" drive, and it looks like in its place I could put a couple of 3.25"... does this seem really silly? Would it melt the power supply? Can that be beefed up, if I decided to put 2 drives in? One of the reasons that comes to mind for disliking external drives is that I expect my Mac to go to Europe at times, and whereas it is "power sensing" (universal voltage/mains frequency) external drives may not be. Also, there is a question of compactness -- that's what the 'c' is all about in the IIc_ series, I think. Anything you can tell me about your drive, or a supplier would be welcome. Thanks, Carlo. PS -- followups to comp.sys.mac.hardware. carlo@cvs.rochester.edu "Oh shit, not /dev/null!!!"
jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) (11/20/89)
carlo@zebra.cvs.rochester.edu (Carlo Tiana) writes: >Here are some more questions from a total Mac novice -- with a lot of >faith: I bought a IIci. Now I badly need to put a hard drive in it: I did >not buy it as a package because I decided I could do better from a third >party. Now I have looked around enough that I am quite confused. > >-Is there any reason that a drive that works in a IIcx should not work in a > IIci? If an ad says it's a drive for a IIcx, can I just assume the ad has > not been updated to reflect the newer model's appearance? Any SCSI drive that works in a Mac should work in a IIci. If it works in a Plus (or external to a Plus I should say) it should work in your IIci. >-Should I prefer a 3.5" drive over a 5.35" drive for any reason (or for > that matter, the other way round)? That depends on the mechanism. I talked to Dan Hatch from MicroNet a few days ago. He's the sales manager and keeps up with what's going on. If you want a big drive, him and I both agree that one should invest in a 5.25" CDC MacWren hard drive. If you want a high capacity 3.5", you might want to consider a Maxtor unit. If you want a 3.5" with nothing exceptional in the area of performance, then a Seagate is for you. Also remember, if you mount a 5.25" hard drive internal to a IIci, you can not use DayStar Digital's cache card. But MicroNet is developing their own cache card that will work in the IIci with a 5.25" mechanism mounted internally. I'm probably letting out some heavy non-disclosures by what MicroNet is doing. Also, MicroNet does not sell Quantum mechanism anymore as a result of the engineering/manufacturing problem with the P-40S and P-80S. They flat out told Quantum "we'll call you when we have some proof the problem is corrected." So do NOT buy a Quantum hard drive. They've told me they've had some problems with the P-105S as well, but I haven't had any problems with the 105's we have in-house as of yet. Best advice I can give you is to go CDC MacWren, Maxtor, or Seagate. And you might want to buy it from somebody who deals with MicroNet. If you want to investigate some other options, a Bernoulli Box II (removable hard drive) by IOMega might be worth your while. >-Does the software that comes with the drive (if any) matter? Ie do > specific drives come with their own drivers, and should I be careful that > I get a 'good' driver, or are they the kind of thing you plug in and up > pops the icon? If not, can I buy a cheap drive for it somewhere with a > lousy driver and a better driver from somewhere else? That depends on the software. If you buy a unit from MicroNet, the formatting software they develop will definately work on CDC MacWrens, Maxtors, and Seagate drives. If you want something that will work across the board with all Mac SCSI hard drives, I recommend Unimac's StorWare software. It's at version 1.7 and they are about to release 2.0. I haven't had any problems with Unimac software with respect to formatting hard drives. >-If I put a 3.5" drive in the Mac now, can I put another internal drive in > later? I opened up a IIx with an internal 5.25" drive, and it looks like > in its place I could put a couple of 3.25"... does this seem really silly? > Would it melt the power supply? Can that be beefed up, if I decided to put > 2 drives in? One of the reasons that comes to mind for disliking external > drives is that I expect my Mac to go to Europe at times, and whereas it is > "power sensing" (universal voltage/mains frequency) external drives may > not be. Also, there is a question of compactness -- that's what the 'c' is > all about in the IIc_ series, I think. No, remember, the IIci is just a faster IIcx with a slot for a cache card and a built-in video card. You can only mount ONE hard drive in it internally. If you go the 5.25" hard drive route, you need a special mounting bracket whicturns the drive sideways so the drive is facing right to left insead of forward to backward on a IIcx/ci. The drive is turned at a 90 degree angle so the lengthwise dimension of the hard drive is going from the leftside of the computer to the right. You can ONLY put one floppy and one hard drive in a IIcx/ci. That's it, if you want more, get a IIx. The IIcx/IIci is only half the size of a IIx which means you only can put in half as much inside of it more or less. I'm pretty sure the II/IIx/IIci/IIcx use the same power supply, but if you don't have the mounting space, what good is to going to do you. If you are concerned about needing a second hard drive, get one big hard drive so you don't have to worry about it. >Anything you can tell me about your drive, or a supplier would be welcome. As for drives, what we have is this, two Quantum P-105S units, 1 Seagate ST157N-0 (on a Plus), one Seagate ST157N-1 (on a IIcx), one Quantum 5.25" mechanism (I forget the model number) on an SE. One of the P-105S's is on a IIci and it's working thus far, but I am a bit concerned if it's going to bite the bullet. I hate the term RMA and in dealing with Apple or Quantum lately the term RMA has changed from "return merchandise authorization" to "ream my arse" (pardon the language). As for a distributor, I prefer MicroNet personally. They also do some development as well as system integration, they're basically an Artecon for the Apple Macintosh. >PS -- followups to comp.sys.mac.hardware. I'd love to, but I don't think we get comp.sys.mac.hardware, so everything I just do through comp.sys.mac. I don't see why the spilt is done that way since there isn't really a comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware out there. Well, maybe there is, but I have not gotten any complaints from a moderator about posting hardware related questions and comments on there. /*--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Flames: /dev/null (on my Minix partition) *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * ARPA : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil * INET : jca@pnet01.cts.com * UUCP : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hd-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Apple Computer, Inc. is really the Anti-Christ! *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Note : My opinions are that...mine. My boss doesn't pay me enough to * speak in the best interests of the company (yet). *--------------------------------------------------------------------------*/