Hard Disk question on A600 & A1200. Which disk?

[johnser]

Hi,

Can anyone answer my question on hards disks on the Amiga.

Which hard disks do I use? (IDE SCSI other?) I have an Amiga HDD cable, and the connector looks smaller than a PC IDE connector.

Do I need additional hardware to put a HDD in my amigas?  Also what is the largest size HDD the amiga will handle?

Many thanks in advance.

John

[GPT]

You can only use IDE harddrives because you don't have any scsi interface on your A1200, right?

Else the choice is up to you.


The cable is smaller because A1200/A600 is designed to use 2,5" harddrives and not 3,5" harddrives that is in the most ordinare pc computers.


And the cable you have has 44 pins and the bigger IDE cables only have 40 pins and thats because the extra 4 pins is for power that is separate plugged in on ordinary 3,5" harddrives.

2,5" Harddrives is commonly used in pc notebooks or laptops.


You can use ordinary 3,5" harddrives but you need to buy a 2,5" -> 3,5" converter.
But you need to solder on a 4 pins power cable that is suppos to be connected to the harddrive.


4 Gig is the max HDD limit if you don't buy OS3.9, have a different filesystem or buy a ide upgrade ie IDEFix or ATA2 controller.

[olegil]

A600 and A1200 uses 2.5" IDE drives, hence the smaller connector. The connector provides the usual 40 pins plus 4 extra, mostly power.

You don't need anything except a drive and a cable. If you go for 2.5", use the cable you have. 3.5" drives needs to get power from somewhere and you need to convert the size of the connectors with some form of special cable. Or a regular kit mounted backwards. I use this, but it won't fit unless you have towerized the machine.

A stock A600 or A1200 won't go for a very large drive. The filesystem can't handle partitions larger than 2G, and the device driver can't handle disks above 4G. But with a software upgrade to OS3.9 this becomes so large I don't think you'll have a problem any day soon. We're talking huge, ok? ;-)

Good luck

[johnser]

Thanks for the information. My mind is at rest now.

One last question.  How do I upgrade my OS to OS3.9.  Where can I get the new OS?  Please forgive my ignorance, but I've been away from Amigas for a long time, and have decided to get back into them.

John

[jeffimix]

3.9 and 3.5 are on CD, yuo can order them IIRC on the online store at amiga.com