I need your advice

I got the mpc2xl with floppy by mistake (I thought I was getting it with zip)
apparently you can't get the mpc with zip drive in Canada anyway the store I got from said they can give me a full refund or they can sell me an external scsi hard drive for $150 which they say is a great deal and is much better then the zip??? Is this true? is that a good deal? or should I just get my money back and order one of those new blue xl's with zip online?

I did a search on hard drives and didn't find anything, is getting a hard drive really that much better? is it hard to setup?
Please Help I already made one stupid mistake I don't want to make another.

-Thanks for your time

External HD with cable. $150 is a good price. If I didn't have ZIP of HD I would get it. I have internal ZIP, external CDROM and external HD on my 2kxl.

This is by no means complete .. just my opinion:

Pros to having an external device (HD/Zip Drive/CDrom):
*Data transfer rates are generally better, so you can load your programs and sequences faster

*If you have a SCSI card in your computer, you can just plug it in there to access your data. Unlike USB though, you have to reboot before your computer sees it.

*You can have up to 8 devices connected to your MPC. Should you ever need it, you can have 4 HDs, 2 zip drives, a JAZ drive and a CDRom, and access them all

*a Hard drive is probably the quickest device you can have to store your MPC data

Cons:
*You have to lug around your devices EVERYWHERE you go. If you play a gig, you have to bring them with you and plug them in. They require external power sources so you have to waste valuable power strip spots for them.

*Since you lug them around, they are suceptable to damage (especially shock sensitive hard drives)

*SCSI cables are hella-expensive. Just one costs 30 - 70 bucks (depending on the length and quality)

*With hard drives, you have so much space. Managing your data could be a pain.

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Pros to having an internal device:
*It goes where your MPC goes

*It uses internal power, so no additional crap to plug in when you go somewhere and set up.

*Zip disks are relatively cheap now, and easier to manage 20 zip disks than 1 giant blob of data on a hard drive

Cons:
*Data transfer rate is a tad bit lower than SCSI, but not by enough that you'll really notice

*The device is stuck in your MPC .. if its a hard drive, the only way to get data in or out is having something else in there like a ZIP drive, and I dont think you can have both. Because of this, ZIP and Floppies are generally the only thing you want in there. JAZ drives probably too, but thats a waste of money.

*You will need the same thing in your computer as in your MPC (like a zip drive) to get files back and forth between the two .. so your price doubles if you dont have one for your computer yet.

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Hope this helps. Honestly, if I were you I'd look at getting a 750 meg ZIP drive, and a wire harness. If you're even slightly tech savy you can probably install it yourself in place of your floppy (theres a tutorial on this site on how to do it). If a 100 meg zip drive is all you need, you can buy that and the mounting kit from Akai for a decent price. The 750 is SO much faster than the 100 or 250, though.

If you really do decide to go for the hard drive, 150 seems like an OK price depending on how big it is. They sell 36.7gig SCSI drives for $40 on pricewatch.com though, and external housing for the drives is like $30 - $60.

Just know that getting your files from your computer to your hard drive is going to take FOREVER. You can only move 1.44megs at a time with the floppy, and it CRAAAAAAAAWWWWLLLLLLS. I think that salesperson is just trying to upsell you .. stick to pricewatch.com for computer gear .. just make sure AKAI supports the hard drive (tho I havent heard of an HD that didnt work via scsi to the mpc)

BK