dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) (06/14/91)
As I have announced, I am putting together a comprehensive set of ascii files containing the plans for my "piggyback" on-the-motherboard second hard disk upgrade. Even the schematic is all in ascii (not bad, if I do say so myself!) Anyway, I want my plans to be as informative as possible, so someone contemplating the procedure won't have to dig all around for various tidbits of info. Here's some things I don't know but that I want to include. Please help! 1. Where can good power supplies be found (for spinning up two hard drives)? PeeCee supplies tend to be heavy on the +5 and light on the +12, which is exactly the opposite of what is required here. I wound up using a HUGE PeeCee type supply (5A line fuse!), but I'm sure one could do better. (?) 2. Where can handy external hard disk enclosures be found? What works for this? Are there any that come complete with power supply? Are there standard connectors on the backs of these, that it might be a good idea to conform to? 3. I can find the fountain of youth. I can find the holy grail. But what continues to elude me is a 20-pin male DIP plug that crimps-on (insulation displacement) to ribbon cable. I've seen them in 14- and 16-pin, but never 20. The (very rare) 20-pin DIP plugs I have seen have solder terminals. Booo. This would *really* be useful for my upgrade. I had to do extra work because I couldn't find one. Does it exist? 4. What can I tell my readers of the HD2 upgrade? I try to describe all upgrade paths, stating the advantages and disadvantages of each as fully and honestly as I can. In particular, (a) does it do P5.1, (b) is a four-hard-disk version of the 3.51m kernel available, (c) what is still available from John and what does it cost? Also, while I have you all here :^) Suppose you are contemplating a two-disk upgrade, and I suggest that you put both hard disks in an external case because (a) it eases the load on the overworked 3b1 supply, (b) you'll need and external case and power supply for the second hard drive anyway, and (c) you won't need to open the 3b1 in the future if you need to switch your hard drives around. Would you still decide to leave the internal drive inside, would you follow my suggestion, or would you do something else entirely? The reason I ask is that I want to go into the most detail describing the procedures that most people will follow, and mention more briefly the alternatives. I do describe every configuration I know of, including both-internal-with-two-floppies-external (hi, Dave B!), both-internal-stacked (hi, Craig V!), one-in-one-out (hi, Gil&Lenny!) and both-external (hi, myself!). So, consider this an informal survey. You determine the nature of the document! -- Unix is not your mother.
kal@cbnewsj.att.com (kevin.lyons) (06/15/91)
David Thomas asked whether anyone would object to housing piggy-backed dual hard disks in an external box as an alternative to housing them inside the UNIX PC case. Not me. I've seen several people who HAD to go the external box route when they wanted to move up to a larger capacity hard disk from a 20 (or 10, even) half height hard disk, and the easiest hard disks to find were full height. Exposed ribbon cables sometimes give me the willies, but a good solid housing should be okay. Kevin