A4000 hard disc

[SirGraham]

Hello everybody.

I have an A4000 with Phase 5 digital Products CyberSCSI MK2 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1230) accepting SCSI-2 hard discs. I have only one, which is SCSI and 2.1 gb.

I was thinking about purchasing another one. The ideal thing would be an SCSI-2 one, because of speed (3.8 mb/sec), but i'm thinking about IDE because of size.

Can I install an IDE hard disc in my machine? I think it's possible but not sure. Could I take a PC hard disc, format and use it with my Amiga? What's the biggest size for an Amiga partition? I have Workbench 3.1

Thank you!!!

[Tumbleweed]

You can use a IDE drive in the A4000 on the native ide port. I've got an 80gig drive in my A4000D and it works fine. The only thing with big drives is you need to have something like IDE Fix or TD64 to get them to work properly. You also need to change the file system to somtheing like Smart File System or Professional File System3. Both are free an you can get the latter on aminet. I used to use Smart File System but I've been toying with PFS3.

Weed

[matt3k]

Hi Sir Graham,

My humble recommendation is to use the cyberscsi controller.  It will be much faster than IDE.  I recently purchased an adapter to convert SATA to SCSI and went with an SATA SSD.  Even a new SATA 2.5 drive will be a good fix.

Yes the speed will be greater then the cyberscsi can possible reach but, the drive will be brand new providing the longest life experience and you will see speed in the neighborhood of 8mb/s which will be MUCH faster than IDE.

Have used PFS for many years, use the direct scsi driver and you can select any size (what ever the limit of pfs is) partitions.  IMHO it is worth the extra money to have the speed and long life of a new drive...

Good luck...

Matt

[SirGraham]

Yeah. I also think SCSI option is the best.

I've taken a look to a hard disc which seems to be, mainly, SCSI-3. Here's the link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/50gb-SCSI-50-68pin-Harddrive-Amiga-Video-Toaster-Flyer-Seagate-Barracuda-7200rpm-/280977465603?pt=US_Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item416b8fe103#shId

CyberSCSI MK2 is for SCSI-2. Will it work with that hard disc?

[Zac67]

You can hook up just about any SCSI HDD. There are wide SCSI (68 pin) and SCA ones (80 pin) but with an appropriate adapter 99% of them will work.

Drives / partitions larger than 4 GB will be a problem unless all your drivers and filesystems are made compatible:
http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/4gb_faq.html
http://www.youngmonkey.ca/nose/articles/NewTekniques_9810/AmigaInMotion.html

[SirGraham]

Well, I was thinking about a 50-pin hard disc so I don't need any adapter.

4 gb the maximum size for a partition? I don't care if I have to create several partitions.

Thank you.

[matt3k]

You will not find a new 50 pin scsi drive.  Those drives will be at 20 years old and I don't recommend them to be very reliable.

I would go with a sata to scsi adapter, still may need a 68 pin to 50 pin adapter.

If you you direct scsi and pfs 3 don't need to worry about partition sizes.


Take care,

Matt

[Thomas]

Well, I was thinking about a 50-pin hard disc so I don't need any adapter.

4 gb the maximum size for a partition? I don't care if I have to create several partitions.

Thank you.

4GB is the limit for the disc. Partition size does not matter. You cannot make multiple 4GB partitions and expect them to be working. They will appear to work at the beginning, but sooner or later they will corrupt each other because they all share the same 4GB of the drive.

The 4GB limit applies to IDE and to the file system delivered with WB 3.1.

In combination with the CybSCSI MK2 PFS3 would be ideal. This combnation has no limits (except the 100 GB partiton size limit of PFS3). You can even make one single partition which covers the entire drive (up to 100 GB).

For IDE you additionally need new IDE drivers, not only a new file system.
http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/4gb_faq.html
http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/filesyslimits.html

[alexh]

I would go with a sata to scsi adapter

They cost lots and lots of money.

still may need a 68 pin to 50 pin adapter.

So why get a SATA->SCSI adapter?

The best value for money would be a modern SCSI 3 drive and an adapter. You could get the two for about €30

[matt3k]

They cost lots and lots of money.


So why get a SATA->SCSI adapter?

The best value for money would be a modern SCSI 3 drive and an adapter. You could get the two for about €30

Your right Alex, they are expensive, but if you want a brand new SSD they are the only option.

I agree the best value would be a SCSI 3 Drive and an adapter.  Can you buy scsi ssds?   Can you still buy new scsi hard disks?

[alexh]

if you want a brand new SSD they are the only option.

A SCSI multi-card reader is another option.

http://a4000t.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=180

Can you buy scsi ssds?

Yes but they are prohibitively expensive.

Can you still buy new scsi hard disks?

Yes, but like PATA drives are being phased out for SATA parallel SCSI are being phased out for SAS.

The cost per GB for new Parallel SCSI drives is quite high but unit prices are reasonably low. (i.e. they are small but cheap.)

[SirGraham]

Thank very much for explaining hard discs stuff under Amiga.

It's easy I will use PFS3. I've been reading about it on Aminet and looks promising. 100 gb for a partition is really enough for me.

I should buy a 50 pins hard disc. I could use a 50 m to 68 f for a 68 pins hard disc, but I haven't found many.

Anyway, I'll keep on thinking about this...

[fitzsteve]

I'm using 20gb 7200rpm IDE HDD's, I got a job lot of NOS Seagate drives and use them with SCSI-IDE converters in my big box Amiga's, I get up to 10mb/sec on my SCSI-2 devices.  Of course you can use larger drives.

I use SFS and as they are on SCSI I do not need IDEFix, etc as the 4gb limit does not apply on SCSI.

My Yamaha SCSI-IDE adapters cost about £30 each and I have three of them now.  Well worth it IMHO.

[alexh]

I could use a 50 m to 68 f for a 68 pins hard disc, but I haven't found many.

There are 10's of them on eBay. And you'd probably use an 80-pin to 50-pin adapter as most new parallel SCSI hard drives are 80-pin

[Zac67]

SCA drives (80-pin) do not offer any way of termination, nor do newer 68-pin ones (LVD/SE). So either get an adapter with terminator or - if you're planning to use several drives - a 68-pin cable complete with terminators (SE or LVD/SE) and an adapter for your 50-pin controller. Some 68-pin are not satisfied with 50-pin (narrow) termination and may not spin up.