Mapower 502 cabinet, what to do with it ?

madsovenielsen · 05-10-2010, 01:18 PM

Hey all.

i have purchased a Mapower SCSI cabinet (it was very cheap)

http://www.allaboutweb.dk/images/front.jpg
http://www.allaboutweb.dk/images/back.jpg
http://www.allaboutweb.dk/images/top.jpg

Now i was thinking of using it for a home backup system. but it can't take any harddisks because the connectors on the back is Centronics 50 pin and inside its 50 Pin flat cable. its a cabinet designed for 5.25" optical drives. CD-ROM, DAT etc. i have thought about buying a picoITX motherboard and a picoPSU from mini-itx.com, the internal PSU can be completly removed leaving plenty of room for the motherboard and picoPSU. the harddisk can be installed with 5.25" to 3.5" brackets.

Is there any other options i havent thought about ?

Any ideas is very welcome.

/mads

smeezekitty · 05-10-2010, 01:33 PM

You could turn it into a small desktop

madsovenielsen · 05-10-2010, 01:49 PM

Yeah. i was thinking about a linux based backup system. or something. what are my options for a SCSI 5.25" drive ? i dont want to use DAT. or other tape drives. any ideas ?

/mads

smeezekitty · 05-10-2010, 02:08 PM

Strangely, scsi hard-disks have a very low capacity to cost ratio (not good).

madsovenielsen · 05-10-2010, 02:35 PM

Yes. i know. i have a SCSI harddisk lying around, 72.8 Gb 10.000 RPM. is it possible to put this in it ?
it wouldt have to be over some sort of adapter ?

/mads

cantab · 05-10-2010, 02:36 PM

You can get IDE to USB or SATA to USB adapters relatively cheaply. Couple of them, couple of mounting brackets, couple of drives, compact USB hub. Connect it to a computer, and if you want let the computer do softRAID. (If you just do mirroring you can still read from a computer that doesn't support the RAID)
Or you might be able to do something with eSATA.

You could think about using laptop drives. Although you pay more, you could potentially fit a LOT of them in the space of two 5 1/4 inch bays. You'd probably need to make your own custom mounting - can't be too hard with a bit of sheet metal surely? - and I'd suggest a cooling fan on the front.

madsovenielsen · 05-10-2010, 02:41 PM

Yeah good idea. but what about a Tandberg SLR drive ? (the major function of this box will be backup)
is tape drives over 50 pin centronis cables well supported under linux / unix ?

/mads