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SMD/IDE hard drive conversion anyone?

OK, maybe the wrong forum so if so, please point me elsewhere...

Has anyone here come across, or even built, an adaptor to allow a modern-ish drive (IDE/compact flash?) to be used as a replacement for a circa-1990 SMD hard-drive. OK, so it's a long shot but you never know...

"Why" you ask? Because there is still equipment doing sterling work which uses these drives and like-for-like replacements are $3,000.00 (for a 20MB disk!) from specialist refurbishers. OTOH, CompactFlash devices are cheap and how hard can it be to convert between two different drive interfaces, says the computer bod with no electronics experience who wouldn't know where to start!

Paul DS.

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Reply to
Paul D.Smith
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Wilson labs has been doing similar converters for a few decades now. Due to the abysmal reliability of IDE drives, they usually provide an adapter for hooking a SCSI drive up to an older interface.

formatting link

Hint: if you're worried about the price difference between an IDE and a SCSI drive, you are not a potential customer :-).

Tim.

Reply to
Tim Shoppa

modern-ish

SMD

Boy, those are some serious units! Unfortunately, the drive in question is a 5.25inch SMD 20MB drive in a micro-computer in an EPR spectrometer. From looking at Wilson's website, their SMD drives are targeted at old Winchester drive users with a lot of space to house the drive. That said, they do suggest a call so it might be worth a punt when the old drive goes.

FYI, apparently the replacement code (refurbished) is about $3,000.00 and replacing the micro-computer for the latest controller is about $15,000.00 - but obviously you get a lot more function such as networking etc. for that.

Thanks for the link, Paul DS.

Reply to
Paul D.Smith

If, for example, it's a Unibus or Q-bus PDP-11 or VAX, then there's probably a drop-in compatible disk controller that'll talk SCSI instead of SMD.

Whether anyone is willing to "support" a hodgepodge-not-as-originally-delivered-from-the-vendor config is a different matter.

Tim.

Reply to
Tim Shoppa

No way to hang an external drive?

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

Years ago I worked for a company which made such controllers, part of the operation is still in business, so if this is the problem send me a few more details and I may be able to chase down a Tech for you.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Tweddle

Why not buy an IDE card? Or get one from an old computer? I saw lots of them, almost none of them had one integrated in the motherboard.

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

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