SCSI HD question(s)

[HomeLAN]

My IT guy here at work gave me 2 hot-swap bays configured for 50-pin SCSI hard drives. That works nicely, since my main rig is SCSI, and I have an open slot on the channel with my CD-ROM.

There are several 50-pin hard drives available on e-bay, but I note that many are marketed to mac owners. Question #1 - Is a mac drive usable in a PC environment, or am I likely to run into a firmware issue?

Alternatively (question #2) where can I pick up a 50-pin SCSI HD for a PC with a capacity of 18-36 gig?

TIA.

 

[catocom]

I know the old old 50 pin scsi- apple/quantum hard drive will work in either.
I'm not sure about newer ones. (the ones over 2gig)

All the 50 pin scsi drives I have are onlu 9 gig.
I got 4 of them though.

 

[samcurry]

homey, not sure about mac to pc, but i would assume that now its pretty much the same.
2nd, chack out CDW and Buy.com for their prices I have bought several drives from both.

 

[samcurry]

this is from maxtor:

How can I tell if my SCSI drive is Apple Macintosh compatible?

Question How can I tell if my SCSI drive is Apple Macintosh compatible?

Answer Most SCSI drives will work in an Apple computer. Third party installation software is often needed to identify the drive tp the MAC operating software. For software driver support, contact your local computer dealer or APPLE reseller details on available software programs. Maxtor does not provide software for Apple branded computers. The following companies develop APPLE hard drive formatting and diagnostic tols:

• The La Cie Storage Utilities (AKA: Silver Lining)
  Telephone: 503-844-4500
  Internet: [url]http://www.lacie.com/
• FWB[/url] Software's Hard Disk Toolkit
  Telephone: 650-482-4800
  Internet: [url]http://www.fwb.com/
• Micromat[/url] Inc. TechTool Pro & Drive 10
  Telephone: 800-829-6227
  Internet: [url]http://www.micromat.com
• CharisMac[/url] Engineering Inc. 'Anubis' utility
  Telephone: 530-885-4420
  Internet: [url]http://www.charismac.com/
• Symantec[/url] Inc. Norton Utlities for Macintosh
  Telephone: 541-335-7000
  Internet: [url]http://www.symantec.com/

[/url]

 

[HomeLAN]

Thanks. What I may do is buy an 80 pin drive and an adapter. Issue solved (for less cost, too).

 

[HomeLAN]

Right. 2 X 18.2 gig Seagate 7200 RPM SCSI2 Wide 80 pin drives, 2 80-50 pin adapters, $55.

We'll know in 10 days or so whether this'll work.

 

[Inkara1]

What if I mentioned I have a single 20 gig IDE drive in my system, and I still have 7 gigs free space?

 

[HomeLAN]

Hey, I run 1 machine with a 6 gig IDE, 2 machines with 8 gig IDE's, and one with a 36 gig SCSI.

So which one do I add to? The 36 gigger, of course.

 

[samcurry]

Inky id tell ya to fill that puppy up.....
im running 4 80 gigs and only have around 7-8 gig left.

 

[HomeLAN]

Just replaced a 80 GB on my Dad-in laws last night (thank God for Ghost) and then backed it up twice to hot-swap drives. Took one home in case of fire.

He running a business on his, and still is only using 28 GB.

 

[catocom]

I've always backed-up to another HD.
I've had several old-school server admins tell me that
I was "crazy, that tape is much more dependable"
I've never had a problem though.
When I worked at the machine-shop I backed-up to a hot swap Hd,
and then the owner would take it to the bank and put it in a safebox.
(it had cam designs and such on it) Never lost a design.

 

[HomeLAN]

You made money on that, though. Since this was family, no charge.

I swear, if I billed him normal rate, I'd be about $600 richer.

 

[samcurry]

hehe isnt it great to do the "family" thing. seems like it always cost me extra when i do.
Cat i would much rather backup to HD instead of tape. but corporate wont hear of it.
Its definately faster and easier to restore from.

 

[Mirlyn]

hehe isnt it great to do the "family" thing. seems like it always cost me extra when i do.
Cat i would much rather backup to HD instead of tape. but corporate wont hear of it.
Its definately faster and easier to restore from.

I don't think I'd want to get rid of tapes anyway. We just put a gigabit card in both of our fileservers and then put a machine next to each server with a 120gb drive and another gigabit card. The storage drives are then tar'ed (zipped) and FTP'd to the online backup machine nightly. The tapes still run daily like usual, but we restore from the online backups. Anything older than a two or three days (which is what we restore 10% of the time) has to come from tape. What used to be several hours work finding files on tape has turned into a couple of minutes worth of uncompressing and FTP'ing back.

 

[HomeLAN]

No go. With the adapter on it, the drive is about 1/2 inch to long to shoehorn into the hotswap bay.

I ran one onto the bus with my CD-ROM, though. As soon as I figure out how to make the adapter stop functioning as a terminator, I should be good to format it. 18 extra gig of storage.

Gonna attempt to trade the other 18 gig for some 50 pinners that will work in the hotswap bays.

 

[HomeLAN]

So, anyone got 50 pin scsi hd's they wanna ditch, at least 9 gig and PC compatible? Willing to talk trade with an 18 gb 80 pin plus adapter.

 

[Professur]

I could send ya 5 2G.

 

[HomeLAN]

Hmm, that may work. I was hoping for larger, but what canya do? Gimme a week or so, and I might PM you about swaps.

 

[samcurry]

Ill look to see what i have in the secret stash.

 

[HomeLAN]

Ill look to see what i have in the secret stash.

Sweeeeeet. On the plus side, the other 18 gigger is playing nicely as additional internal storage. Anyone play with Seagate's programs lately? Very slick. Partitioned and formatted 18 GB in about 30 seconds, from within winblows. I'm impressed.