Macintosh IIci HD Limitations

[pl1984]

Earlier in the year I purchased a complete IIci system except it did not come with an HD. Given the condition of the system I wanted to purchase a IIci OEM model drive. Asking prices for these drives are, IMO, out of line (I say asking prices as I've been monitoring Ebay listings and I've seen the same drives listed for months).

I'll continue to keep an eye out for a reasonably priced IIci OEM drive but in the meantime I thought I would pick up something else just so I can get the system up and running. It's been a long time since I've dealt with Apple specific SCSI HDs so I wanted to check and see what limitations I need to be aware of. Specifically:

• Do I need to utilize an Apple branded drive? I'll be installing Mac OS 7.0.1 (or 7.1, can't recall the specific version and the floppies aren't marked).
• Maximum capacity. I'm considering drives in the 250 - 500 MB range. I don't plan to do much other than play with this system so that should be plenty for its intended use.

Anything else that might need to be considered?

 

[MacTech68]

Ok, here are some pointers (and links to Apple 'TIL' articles) that explain the "mysteries", gleaned from some previous posts:

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Things to be aware of:

1. Use SCSI 50pin. There are adapters for 68 & 80 but these most likely won't fit a "pizza-box" LC Mac.

2. The drive for an LC "pizza-box" MUST be "half-height".

eg: half the height of ye-olde 5 & 1/4" CD-ROM drive. (the same Optical Drive height we use today). Other Macs can fit "full-height" drives, like Quadra 700, IIcx, IIci, PowerMac 8500 etc.

EDIT - so the full height 3.5" drive will fit in your IIci

3. If the drive is larger than about 500MB, you may need to do some fancy changes to the termination. There is Passive and Active termination and some drives are changeable and some are not. Sometimes they will work if not changed to passive termination but corruption may occur.

4. Re-formatting can be difficult if you don't get an "Apple-Badged" drive. These are made by and bear the original manufacturer's name (Seagate, Quantum, Conner, IBM) but there will be a label with (usually) a black Apple logo. "HDSC Setup" will only work with "Apple Badged" drives. There are 'patches' around but these don't always work. Formatting with Apple's later "Drive Setup" won't work since 68K Macs can't load the PPC SCSI driver and will 'Sad mac' on startup. I used to use "FWB HardDisk Toolkit" at least version 1.7.7 since it works with Driver43 (SCSI Manager 4.3) savvy systems and will format ANY drive. FWB seem to have gone 'belly-up' years ago.

Here is v2.0.1 - the "PE" or Personal Edition" does NOT have all the fancy testing functions but allows formatting:
Hard Disk ToolKit PE 2.0.1.zip


5: According to Apple, the maximum volume size for System 6, 7.0.x & 7.1.x is 2GB.

System 7.5.0 maximum is 4GB

System 7.5.2+ maximum is 2TB

The linked Apple TIL articles linked below, when read together, give you a good overview and understanding of ALL the limitations:

Macintosh Operating System: Maximum Volume Size
System 7.5: Enhanced Large Volume Size Support
Macintosh: File System Specifications and Terms
Drive Setup 1.7.3 and Earlier: Version History
HD SC Setup 7.2

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Note that Apple's own formatter "Apple HD SC Setup" DOES have volume size limitations in earlier versions (see the v7.2 article linked above).

Also, some 'patched' Apple HD SC Setup copies you can find DON'T always work with non-AppleBadged drives.

I think that covers it.

Late Edit - There are other options including the wonderful SCSI2SD - but it's pricey.