Jeff Walther wrote: << It saves a lot of time because I find in a single drive system one of the biggest time consumers is just getting back to where you can boot the computer back up to look at teh drives and access your disk utilities. >>
I concur that - in today's environment - it is absolutely _essential_ to have a second hard drive either immediately "online" or closely available, to do disk maintenence, emergency recovery, etc. The cheapest way to do it is to buy an ATA/PCI card (the $50 ACARD ATA/66 card from Other World Computing comes to mind), and mate that to an ATA high-capacity drive. If you're an s900 owner, it doesn't make sense to have only a single hard drive in that spacious box. Get yourself a second drive in there, and you will have peace of mind and a ready "drive to turn to" if something goes wrong with your "main" drive. Actually, one of the niftiest (though not the cheapest) solutions I've seen is the new Sonnet "ATA hard drive card". You can see it here: <http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4799&Item=STITHDM> This is a modified ATA/PCI card that has a single ATA/100 channel (can accomodate 2 drives), and a second connector to which you can attach a 2.5" portable-type drive. Granted, 2.5" drives are slower, pricier-per-gigabyte, and lower-capacity, than the standard 3.5" ATA drive coupled to an ATA/PCI card. But the flexibility and immediate "connectability" of the Sonnet hard drive PCI card looks to be almost unbeatable, especially for a tech person who services numerous Macs. It should work with almost _any_ Mac or clone that has a PCI slot available. If one could install a current "universal" version of System 9.2.2, I'm wondering if you couldn't create a "universal hard drive" with which to revive any sick PCI Mac: that is, open the case, slip this card in, boot up, diagnose, repair, restore. One could have various versions of the System software stored on the card, application software, etc. The downside is support for the single 2.5" device and only two other devices. I may get one of these for my secondary Mac (9600 picked up cheap on ebay). It has all the front bays filled, already, anyway (with room for only 2 more 3.5" drives at the bottom of the case). If I do, I'll post a followup here. - John -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
