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Using a 3.5" Hard Drive

John William

Posts 566
16 Jun 2023 23:00

The accelerator for the Amiga 500 have an option to use a 3.5" device. CD-ROM or even a mechanical hard drive. If a person wishes to use a mechanical hard drive installed can it fit in the case of the A500 after removing the metal protective shield?

If the answer is yes, is there is a hard drive crate or something that makes the hard drive stay on position and avoid contact between it and the motherboard to avoid unwanted discharge or damage to the components?

Is there is a picture showing how it is done correctly? if the answer is no and it need to be external.....are there any 3D printed case where it holds the hard drive on the sidebar of the Amiga 500 with ventilation hole?

Thanks in advance.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6223
17 Jun 2023 01:08

Hi,
 
yes you can of course use a IDE harddrive
with the Firebird or the Icedrake or Manticore or other cards.
There are many people doing this.
 
I personally not do this as I prefer using CF for some reasons:
 
a) CF (compact Flash) drives are silent.
b) CF drives stay cool
c) CF drives have no moving parts.
d) You not need to worry to break them by moving the Amiga around while its On.
e) CF have very low latency which makes Amiga OS which often has many small files like e.g the Workbench load faster.
 
Hardrives also have some advantages:
a) You can get them in very high capacity
b) they have a build in cache and can reach very high max throughput ... you can get like over 20 MB/sec on the V4SA with ApolloOS from them.
 
As you will know the A1200 and A600 were sold with harddrives inside. This means of course that the Amiga case is big enough for a drive. For the A600 and A1200 crates were used - and the mainboards of the A600 and A1200 have mounting options for the crate. For the A500 you need to be a bit more creative in attaching this inside.
 
Maybe someone using a HD can share his experience.


John William

Posts 566
17 Jun 2023 02:42

Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Hi,
 
  yes you can of course use a IDE harddrive
  with the Firebird or the Icedrake or Manticore or other cards.
  There are many people doing this.
 
  I personally not do this as I prefer using CF for some reasons:
 
  a) CF (compact Flash) drives are silent.
  b) CF drives stay cool
  c) CF drives have no moving parts.
  d) You not need to worry to break them by moving the Amiga around while its On.
  e) CF have very low latency which makes Amiga OS which often has many small files like e.g the Workbench load faster.
 
  Hardrives also have some advantages:
  a) You can get them in very high capacity
  b) they have a build in cache and can reach very high max throughput ... you can get like over 20 MB/sec on the V4SA with ApolloOS from them.
 
  As you will know the A1200 and A600 were sold with harddrives inside. This means of course that the Amiga case is big enough for a drive. For the A600 and A1200 crates were used - and the mainboards of the A600 and A1200 have mounting options for the crate. For the A500 you need to be a bit more creative in attaching this inside.
 
  Maybe someone using a HD can share his experience.

thank you for this awesome reply. Yes, please. If someone can help me fit a 3.5" hard drive inside the Amiga 500 where it does not touch the component or move around and damage internal component. If it is too risk that and with the heat it produces vs a 2.5" inside an Amiga 500 case, any advice how to put it aside with it's own case?

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