Can I use an external hard drive from my MPC2000xl?

My ancient zip 100 SCSI is 50/50 when it comes to saving files recently. I've lost over 6 beats in the past month that I didn't back up on my PC.

My question is: I'm looking for an alternative method to using the external zip drive to save my files. Can I hook up an external hard drive from my MPC2000xl to save and store my files?

Thx for any help.

dirty drummer wrote:My ancient zip 100 SCSI is 50/50 when it comes to saving files recently. I've lost over 6 beats in the past month that I didn't back up on my PC.

My question is: I'm looking for an alternative method to using the external zip drive to save my files. Can I hook up an external hard drive from my MPC2000xl to save and store my files?

Thx for any help.

im not 100% sure, but i dont think that an scsi hard drive exist. i could be wrong. look on ebay, do a search for an external scsi hard drive, u might Find one!!!!! another method although not very practical, is to use the floppy drive, u have to use like 5 to save a song eith the sounds, but at least u wont lose your work.

dirty drummer wrote:My ancient zip 100 SCSI is 50/50 when it comes to saving files recently. I've lost over 6 beats in the past month that I didn't back up on my PC.

My question is: I'm looking for an alternative method to using the external zip drive to save my files. Can I hook up an external hard drive from my MPC2000xl to save and store my files?

Thx for any help.

im not 100% sure, but i dont think that an scsi hard drive exist. i could be wrong. look on ebay, do a search for an external scsi hard drive, u might Find one!!!!! another method although not very practical, is to use the floppy drive, u have to use like 5 to save a song eith the sounds, but at least u wont lose your work.

yea they exist. i think they are mostly internal drives though....but i think ive heard of scsi hard drives. research the shit. hit up ebay like he said or maybe even google.

ok.. the short answer... an emphatic, yes!!

there are such things as SCSI HDs. you might consider doing a search yourself on ebay Science (or any other search engine). they are very real but hard to find nowadays with the popularity of IDE drives (watch out cause some retailers try to pull the wool over your eyes by charging an arm and a leg for drives).

problem is getting one that is external. some people buy a converter box that you can instal SCSI devices into and then connect the the SCSI port of your mpc. It says on AKAI's website that the mpc will recognizes up to 26gigs (or something like that, which is a fair amount).

anywho.. do a search on the forum. lots of info to be attained about the subject matter. maybe a new internal zip like the 250mb or 750mb might be more down your alley? i've made the switch and am happy with the results (although i never had problems with the external 250mb zip before).

the thing with SCSI HDs you have to partition them with the mpc and, as we are all well aware of, the mpc partitions don't get along too good with pcs (unless you got a program like cdxtrack, awave or chicken translator). another thing, you can't connect the HD to both your computer and mpc at once because if the data is access at the same time or changed by either device the drive will get screwed up big time if the data is accessed again without a reboot of the drive image.

perhaps i'm wrong about that and the HD can be interchanged easily for backups with regards to the partitions.. but there are things you need to investigate before copping one for your setup.


1-0ne

Peep this link:

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/dwilson3/all ... html#EXT-4

That is but one of the SCSI external hard drives Jim sells at www.scsi4samplers.com

The man is terrific, timely, friendly, helpful, honest, and a great businessman. He has the market nearly cornered, as evidenced by the fact that there are quite a few people who use samplers these days, many samplers have a SCSI port, and obviously from this post, there aren't a lot of people selling these products.

I bet Jim makes a killing. I bought a 4.3 GB HD from him on ebay. He sent it with the SCSI cable (no extra charge) and the drive partioned into 5 sections, each with .86 GB, one partition filled with 1000+ sounds already organized into folders and pgms, loading instantly. Speed is like a dream, roughly 50 times faster than a floppy. Saves and loads in less than a second. I counted, took me roughly 9 seconds to load 64 pre-programmed (to the pads) sounds. Even threw in the stock kits (wack as they may be) for the 3000, the 60, and a shitload of other stuff including basses and flutes.

Shit was ill. I gave him good feedback on ebay and I'm a lifetime customer.

I highly recommend getting one of his HD/CD-Rom combo drives, as its a pain to turn off and on the different equipment to use one and then the other. I'm too retarded to setup a SCSI chain, so I just alternate the cord between the two devices as I use them. Had I known he had the combo drives available, I would have bought one of those instead. Luckily, he has a 30 day no-questions-asked money back guarantee on all his products---I might just trade it back and pay the difference.

Worth every penny.


-TicToc

maybe next time if i dont know something, i need not say nuthin...

np bro, thanks for helping anyway. that's what we are all here for, to learn new things.


1-0ne

p.s i checked tic's boys site. he has some alright stuff but his drives don't quite have the capacity to intise my interest. personally, i've seen SCSI drives in mom and pop computer shops for 100 bones canadian with 18gig capacity. do some searching. you'll find cheap prices but if you don't know anything about computer hardware you might be better opted to call tic's boy up. he seems to have some warrenty thing going down that could help if something were to happen.

again search on the net you'll find those cases are cheap, HD and CDROM/DVDROM drives are cheap and you can make your own combos with greater capacity for the same price.

your right about jim , i bought a cd rom and some scsi cables from that dude, he on point 10X......

You're right...

However, the MPC2000XL will only support external hard drives up to a limit of 4.5 GB. If you attach anything higher than that to it, it will work, but the MPC wont recognize anything over 4.5 anyway. Any info over 4.5 GB, no matter how big your HD, wont be recognized by the MPC. Use the search function on this site and you will see this info comfirmed.

Hence why I got the 4.3 GB HD. Consider this....he gave me over a thousand sounds, and it took up less than a gig. you can also buy more than one drive and chain them together for maximum storage. sequence and program info takes up almost no data, only sounds do, and even then, they are fairly small files. You can always dump from the hard drive to a zip for backup if you need to, and then delete them off the HD to conserve space.



I'm telling you....his prices include the SCSI cable ($20-25), and a thousand sounds (variable value) plus shipping. Like I said, worth every penny.

At www.mpc2000xl.com the guy shows a DIY mod, where you can install a hard drive internally in your MPC, where the floppy/zip drive would normally be. Too risky for me, but if you are more technical, you can probably handle it yourself.

-Tictoc

look for the LaCIE range...very good and cheap....

greg

Thanks for all the tips. I called Jim @scsi4samplers.com and he was real cool and answered all of my questions. I'm definately going to get one of the combo HD/zip drives. I wish the MPC would recognize a larger GB size than 4.5 though.

I got an external 1 gig hard drive used off ebay with a quantum fireball HD in it, it works great with my original mpc2000. I can cosign for the quantum fireball.

"I wish the MPC would recognize a larger GB size than 4.5 though. "

It does. Try the archives for all the posts where someone uses a 6 gig internal and 9 gig external. When in doubt there is information at, <duh>, www.mpc2000xl.com

`internal` or `external` drives are all the same. The only difference is whether they are in a case with it's own power supply.