I recently found a Mac Crate 40 MB external hard drive. It looks kind of weird, as if it were an accessory for an IBM instead of a Mac. The line of hard drives seems to have been launched in 1988 based on this ad in MacWorld from that year.
The model I found is 40 MB and in fairly good physical condition other than a yellowed plastic bezel.
One quirky thing about the drive is that it has two DB-25 connectors rather than more typical 50-pin Centronix connectors. SCSI ID is set with jumpers. Because 25-pin terminators are uncommon, I'm using a BlueSCSI as the terminator.
Unfortunately when I turned it on, a resistor in the PSU blew within just a couple of seconds. I have no idea what value it is. Rather than try to figure that out, I found a cheap ($14 USD) 12V/5V power supply on Amazon that was a bit smaller than the original power supply and seemed like it'd work with the existing standoffs if they were relocated. After drilling some new holes and snipping the leads, it worked perfectly.
Original PSU:
Replacement:
Inside things are also a little odd. There's a 10 position IDC cable connecting the SCSI ID pins on the hard drive to the external pins. There are only 6 pins on that board side and no keying on the cable.
Also, the notch side of the SCSI cable is in the normal orientation on the drive itself, but actually needs to face the other side on the connector board.
The drive itself is a full height 40MB Seagate. There's a handwritten note on it that it's price new was $239. Either someone got a great deal or purchased this drive late in its life.
Oh one other weird thing. The enclosure was designed for a face plate to be screwed into the hard drive bracket. But this faceplate doesn't line up with those holes and was clearly just glued on at the factory. It was loose when I got it, so I glued it down with epoxy.
Since replacing the PSU, the drive has been working fine. It needed a few bad blocks marked off and a couple of viruses cleared up. Now it'll be a go-to drive to pair with early compact Macs.
The model I found is 40 MB and in fairly good physical condition other than a yellowed plastic bezel.
One quirky thing about the drive is that it has two DB-25 connectors rather than more typical 50-pin Centronix connectors. SCSI ID is set with jumpers. Because 25-pin terminators are uncommon, I'm using a BlueSCSI as the terminator.
+-------+---------+
|SCSI ID| 4 2 1 |
+-------+---------+
| 0 | o o o |
| 1 | o o x |
| 2 | o x o |
| 3 | o x x |
| 4 | x o o |
| 5 | x o x |
| 6 | x x o |
| 7 | x x x |
+-------+---------+
Unfortunately when I turned it on, a resistor in the PSU blew within just a couple of seconds. I have no idea what value it is. Rather than try to figure that out, I found a cheap ($14 USD) 12V/5V power supply on Amazon that was a bit smaller than the original power supply and seemed like it'd work with the existing standoffs if they were relocated. After drilling some new holes and snipping the leads, it worked perfectly.
Original PSU:
Replacement:
Inside things are also a little odd. There's a 10 position IDC cable connecting the SCSI ID pins on the hard drive to the external pins. There are only 6 pins on that board side and no keying on the cable.
Also, the notch side of the SCSI cable is in the normal orientation on the drive itself, but actually needs to face the other side on the connector board.
The drive itself is a full height 40MB Seagate. There's a handwritten note on it that it's price new was $239. Either someone got a great deal or purchased this drive late in its life.
Oh one other weird thing. The enclosure was designed for a face plate to be screwed into the hard drive bracket. But this faceplate doesn't line up with those holes and was clearly just glued on at the factory. It was loose when I got it, so I glued it down with epoxy.
Since replacing the PSU, the drive has been working fine. It needed a few bad blocks marked off and a couple of viruses cleared up. Now it'll be a go-to drive to pair with early compact Macs.
