Re: Smartport Hard drive?

["Greg Andrzejewski" <pressyourluck85@yahoo.com>]

I called Alltech. The only focus card they have is a 170mb for $99. Are
there any other places that sell them?

"David Empson" <dempson@actrix.gen.nz> wrote in message
1fnjnsk.wyywe64lfsoN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz">news:1fnjnsk.wyywe64lfsoN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz...
> Greg Andrzejewski <pressyourluck85@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I've seen a few sites mentioning the existance of smartport hard drives
for
> > the Apple IIgs. Were any ever produced?
>
> I doubt any were specifically produced for the IIgs, but they were
> avaialable for the IIc, and the same drives would work on the IIgs.  The
> design I'm aware of consisted of an external case incorporating a
> SmartPort to SCSI protocol converter, and a SCSI hard drive mechanism.
> They were originally made by Chinook, if I remember right.
>
> For the IIc, there was no other alternative - the SmartPort was the only
> suitable external port for connecting a hard drive.  The problem is that
> SmartPort is very slow (by hard drive standards) so you end up with a
> hard drive that isn't much faster than a 5.25" floppy or UniDisk 3.5
> (data transfer rate is similar - all you save is the seek time and
> rotational latency).  The only real benefit is the convenience of having
> all your files in one place.
>
> For the IIe or IIgs, a SCSI or IDE hard drive is a vastly better
> experience.  Even with an original Apple SCSI card, a IIgs is able to
> transfer data to and from a SCSI hard drive up to four times faster than
> a SmartPort hard drive (a IIe wouldn't get quite as much benefit, and
> neither would a IIgs running ProDOS-8).  With an Apple High-Speed SCSI
> card or RamFast SCSI card, the performance is even better.  I haven't
> done speed tests on IDE cards, but I expect they would be similar to the
> original Apple card (perhaps a little faster), as I don't think they are
> using DMA.
>
> > What would be my chances of finding one?
>
> Difficult.  The SmartPort hard drives were pretty rare.
>
> > SCSI and IDE cards are so expensive... :-(
>
> I expect it would work out about the same.
>
> Have you looked for a Focus hard drive?  It is an IDE controller with
> 2.5" hard drive mounted directly on it.
>
> --
> David Empson
> dempson@actrix.gen.nz