68kMLA Classic Interface

This is a version of the 68kMLA forums for viewing on your favorite old mac. Visitors on modern platforms may prefer the main site.

Click here to select a new forum.
Largest 2.5" SCSI Drive?
Posted by: Aoresteen on 2008-02-15 17:03:59
What's the largest capacity 2.5" scsi hard drive that was available? Were any 1 gig drives made?

Thanks!

Posted by: LCGuy on 2008-02-15 20:24:16
IIRC, there were 1GB native 2.5" SCSI HDDs made, but they are RARE. Anything bigger is most likely a standard IDE HDD with a SCSI -> IDE bridge.

Posted by: Bunsen on 2008-02-15 23:02:11
From vague memory, anything larger than 750MB stands a good chance of being an adapted IDE. Which is good, as they'll take IDE drives up to around 4GB

Posted by: LCGuy on 2008-02-16 15:46:05
Out of curiousity, what happens if you put a larger drive on one of those bridges? (that you say can take up to 4GB) Does it only recognise the first 4GB of the drive, or does it not pick the drive up at all?

Just curious, considering that they stopped making 4GB notebook drives many years ago...

Posted by: wood_e on 2008-02-16 21:03:47
The controller can only address a certain max size of the drive. IIRC it will only use the 1st 4gb (in this case) and then do nothing with the rest.

Posted by: Bunsen on 2008-02-21 03:20:55
Teh infos is here

/ ADTX / was the unit Apple sold, as a 1GB drive for use in the scsi PBs. The same drive/adapter combo was sold by aftermarket vendors (eg: MicroTech) for PowerBooks, SparcBooks, etc.
/ With the Apple 1GB + ADTX PB SCSI drive, you can replace the drive with any 12.5mm or thinner IDE drive. However my ADTX adapters can recognize only a max of ~8GB, where the Century adapters have a 32GB limit. Also, the ADTX adapters I have are somewhat slow, the Century is faster /

Upsizing an Apple OEM 1GB drive

I formatted an IBM 10GB Travelstar / on an ATA-bus equipped PB, then transfered it to the ADTX adapter plate. At first glance the drive appeared to be all 10 GBs but testing revealed an unholy mess of read-write errors.

Upon re-initializing the drive (using Drive Setup IIRC) it then showed up as an 8.x GB drive with the remaining portion not visible or available for use. Worked fine though, and was quite a bit faster /

The ADTX adapter uses the early laptop drive hole layout. Most ATA drives 4GB and larger use the later-style hole layout. The adapter's metal side rails can be flipped over to allow using the later layout, however a couple of the mounting screws tend to get in the way. I've sourced thinner-headed screws, and I've also ground down thicker screws. It's kind of a bother either way, but it is possible to get it to work.
1