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tevion5

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 12, 2011
1,966
1,600
Ireland
I've ordered an 8600 with everything but the HDD. I keep reading that it uses internal SCSI but every picture I see of the internals looks like plain old IDE to me. SCSI looks nothing like IDE usually. What's the story?
 
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tevion5

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 12, 2011
1,966
1,600
Ireland
You are thinking ultra wide scsi looking different. This scsi looks like IDE but it is not.

Damn so I can't use any of my 90's PC hard drives? That is gonna drive the cost of my investment now...

I don't suppose adapters exist, and if so do they cause any limitations?
Also does 8600 use 50 or 68 pin SCSI internally?
 
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tdiaz

macrumors 6502
Feb 7, 2006
477
73
There's two 50 pin SCSI connectors inside, the 8600 has two SCSI busses. The internal HD and CD are one one, and the other is unused internally except for a cable placed for expansion, and accessible from the backplane to connect external devices as well.

No IDE unless you can find a PCI Mac compatible IDE card. I used to modify the Promise PCI ATA-100 dual bus cards for Windows, by adding firmware and a crystal.
 

MacTech68

macrumors 68020
Mar 16, 2008
2,393
209
Australia, Perth
There were SCSI to IDE adapters available, but they were pretty expensive, and still are. They worked pretty well. I think they were limited in drive capacity to 32GB.

IIRC it was an IDSC-21 - searching for IDSC might return a few.

Apple even used a 2.5" version for laptop replacement hard drives (the adapter bolted to the bottom of the drive and provided a 12mm 2.5" SCSI replacement. It's a PowerMonster RX.

I believe the chipset was designed by I-O DATA in 1998

There is still a vendor selling a SCSI to SATA adapter (Stratos Aztec Monster II), but again, they are pricey:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300994386399
 

tevion5

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 12, 2011
1,966
1,600
Ireland
The plot thickens! The 8600 arrived today and it turns out the owner wasn't aware that it had a 4GB SCSI drive inside it and a fully working version of system 9.1!

Not a bad find for €25 :)
 
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