Thanks for taking a look at the new #BlueSCSI v2! It's really a community effort for all these new features and I wanted to thank you personally for all the effort you put into making these videos, beta testing software, and updating documentation - Vintage Mac collecting wouldn't be the same without you!
A new BlueSCSI lineup is such a major event for the vintage computer hobby! It felt so good as this video popped into my notification feed. The thing is I don't even own any machines I could use one on, is it even normal to be excited about this just to watch other people use it?
I own a Mac Plus and I was a day-0 believer that the BlueSCSI v2 that I soldered myself with a Pico W would come through with nice wireless features and today I am rewarded for my FAITH
@@smcic only for a bit using Fetch (ftp client) but it choked on Mac Garden's humongous ftp. I also tried it in System 6 which is not making things easy.
The new WiFi stuff is super exciting. The PiSCSI can already do it I believe, but that device isn’t ideal for internal use, so having a fully internal and truly wireless setup for this is gonna be great. I’m probably going to upgrade my PowerBook 170’s drive with the PicoW module for it at some point. Good video too. Nuts to see the speeds these can achieve. In any future SCSI device reviews though, I’d love to see them compared to their competitors (ZuluSCSI, MacSD, PiSCSI, etc). Lots of great options out there nowadays with a lot of confusion about what can do what. Would love to see a future video comparing them all if that’s something you’d be up for at some point!
Yes, I reviewed the (then RaSCSI) a while back but only used ethernet at the time. It’s always nice to have more features to play with. A lot of videos exist with comparisons, but maybe I’ll do one in the future.
@@Mac84 what excites me the most about the BlueSCSI Wi-Fi stuff is how easy it looks like it’s going to be to configure it all… I tried to set up the PiSCSI’s version of it on the past but I haven’t been able to get it to work. Seeing development of a desk accessory for selecting networks and such has me excited!
Wow I had no idea wifi was supported. I think I got into vintage computers at a great time with all these hard drive replacements. Several years ago there was no way I could’ve afforded the ssd options that were around. Just wanted to say thank you to all the BlueSCSI discord members in the off-topic channel who help me with my endless Macintosh problems.
Just picked up my first vintage Macs today! I got a LC, a Performa 405 with a Performa plus monitor and a keyboard. They both need to be recapped (which I have no experience with) and one needs a PSU and ram as well as new hard drives. Hopefully I can find all the parts I need to get both of these running!
Thank you for helping revive these artifacts of computer history! I'm going to install a BlueSCSI v2 in the Macintosh SE I just got at the consignment room at VCF East! And a personal thanks for booting it up at your table there so we could see it working!
Excellent video. I got into mac restoration because of channels like yours. Sadly, I only have Intel Macs/Macbooks and a Power Mac G5 in my collection so far.
"All you do is add a microSD card to your card and there you go"- its more complicated, always! The Amiga side has a LOT of trial and error, obscure SCSI settings and windows setup idiosyncracies- esp trying to het an hda file on that works. But this is a grand overview.
I can’t speak for the Amiga, but I’ve had zero issues with an IBM PS/2, HP Vectra or other PCs using an Adaptec PCI card. As you said this is meant to be a grand overview and in the video I mention it’s skewed toward the Mac, as it’s what I’m most familiar with. SCSI is more complicated to use in general, but the BlueSCSI v2 model is the most compatible one yet and has fixed a lot of bugs that were present with the previous generation.
Very cool to see new developments! Nice to see those benchmarks, those hard drives sure are fast but at least now there’s more options! Wi-Fi is also a fun addition, interesting to see how useful it would actually be. Great video!
Great video as usual. One thing you might have overlooked is that ones a disk has been used a while the free space tends to become a pit fragmented and seek times become a greater factor (at least for user experience on mechanical drives), here the sd card might have a great advantage,
Someone with a Media 100 NuBus kit needs to test Blue SCSI V2 with it. In the Radius 81/110 tower I had, I had to use FWB HDT to RAID0 stripe four hard drives across both SCSI buses in order to reach the minimum 4 megabytes per second write speeds required for full resolution, 150K per frame video capture. They weren't all matching drives, nor were they the fastest, but working together they were *fast enough*. That is, after I benchmarked them individually and discovered the slick looking, black IBM drive was a super slow POS. It *looked* like it should be fast with its vertically split case with copper tape sealing the join. The housing fit together like the halves of a Volkswagen flat four engine crankcase, clamping the spindle bearings between the aluminum halves. With the poky IBM drive replaced it worked and I was able to digitize from a stereo VHS VCR.
I’ve always fancied the PowerMac 6100 DOS, but they are hard to get in England, and the VGA from 25 pin bespoke adaptors are terribly expensive to get hold of. Used to play Dark Forces on my old IMac G4 lamp, with classic loaded.
I randomly found this review and product and i decided to give it a try for my vintage sampler with scsi. It seems a lot less expensive than Zulu SCSI and i'm willing to try it and see if it works well for me. I ordered the mini version to plug right into an E-Mu sampler. Do all size micro sd cards work? I need to read more documentation, but your video really made me feel this is a solid tool.
What would be awesome with the wifi would be able to mount the drive on a modern desktop to transfer disk images. In order to get my disk images onto a Powerbook 180 (with internal BlueSCSI), I have to copy the disk images to a BlueSCSI SD card from my Macintosh portable, then from the portable copy the disk image to a floppy, then put the floppy in the powerbook 180 lol. If the powerbook 180 BlueSCSI could mount onto the MacBook Pro through wifi, that would be firkin awesome.
Pretty sure its also used outside of the vintage Macintosh community. Some arcade games ran off of SCSI hard drives or SCSI CD drives and people in those communities are using BlueSCSI's to revive those games!
Oh for sure, but since my channel focuses mostly on vintage Apple gear, that's what I showcased in the video. Since filming this I've also used my BlueSCSI on my PCs and NeXT computer, they both worked well!
I knew they were good, but it's always nice to know how good! I'm a little surprised to find out the wireless performance was so slow. I had thought the SCSI network interfaces had reasonable speeds, but you make it sound like dialup and slower than LocalTalk.
As I mention in the video, it's probably due to a number of factors. This is a beta, so it's very early days, things will improve. It relies on an old software driver for a totally different hardware product that wasn't the fastest either. So the fact that this is working at all is pretty dang cool. I don't think the SCSI connection is the bottleneck here, but it'll be cool to see this develop further.
I've really been waiting for one of these things to get fast enough such that I can use it on a silicon graphics machin. there's a huge hole in the market for an "SSD" of a reasonable speed over ultra wide scsi for a silicon graphics machine.
I'm just about to order one of these to use on my Power Macintosh 7200/90! They look awesome. I've created hard drive images on Disk Jockey which I'm sure will work fine. Just wondering where you find the pre made bootable disk images that include applications, games, etc running System 7.5, etc?
It's a shame that SCSI never became as mainstream as IDE. The main reason it didn't was corporate greed, I can't imagine it cost anymore than IDE to manufacture, the HDA is where the cost of a hard rive is.
I had a strange thing happen to the MPF-42A in my Performa 636 today...all of a sudden it stopped ejecting. It wouldn't even attempt an eject- the computer would try to eject the disk, then it would freeze for about 30 seconds and reload the disk. The eject motor wouldn't even turn. I removed the motor and put it back on- and now it's ejecting.
Love my BlueSCSI v2! I have a Performa 631CD and use my BlueSCSI externally plugged into the SCSI input on the back of the machine. My internal IDE hard drive is still working but is there anything similar to the BlueSCSI except for IDE that I could eventually replace my internal HD with?
I’m unsure about IDE adapters, I’m testing some cheap mSATA to IDE adapters that (in very early tests) seem to work. But if I find anything I’ll make a video on them. 👍
@@Mac84 I would be very interested to watch a video about that. I made a note about the mSATA to IDE adapters for my own future reference. Thanks for the helpful reply!
I need to get my for my Quadra 650 with ppc 601 upgrade card. But, currently I keep spending money on my phone addiction instead. :) As a side note. I always think about how Apple Crippled so many Macs. Not that a few PC mfgs. didn't do that. But, it just seemed sad.
It might be nice if there were a version that let you use better flash like a SATA disk provides. Of course the power requirements there would be greater.
Today's SD cards are already plenty fast for this task. The bottleneck is not with the SD card or the BlueSCSI or similar devices, but with the original SCSI interface chips on these vintage computers. Sure, newer SCSI interfaces and add-on cards tend to be faster, but these weren't common until the later Power Macs. Generally speaking, 8-10 MB/s disk speeds for these vintage systems is plenty quick.
@@handenbramilton I'm not suggesting for speed but for longevity and durability. It's incredibly easy to kill an SD card with a normal amount of write cycles.
If a small company were to start remanufacturing scsi and ide drives I believe they would make a killing. It surprises me that a AliExpress type Chinese company already hasn't.
There are several companies that make ide flash modules that plug into ide headers because of how often old PCs are still used for controlling industrial equipment. The only non hobbyist ssd I know of is a 2.5 inch one from the company zheino (I think I got that right). In all cases though they tend to be more expensive relative to their size than most adapters are. Considering SCSI isn't really widely used anymore, even in industrial settings, I doubt companies would have much incentive to make those.
Goofy question as someone who doesn't know much about classic Macs: what does "DOS Compatible" on the front of the Power Macintosh at 16:30 mean? That can't be MS-DOS, so what is it?
Yep! Select Macs in the mid 1990's had a PC hardware add-on card with a processor (486 or similar) and everything you needed to run DOS or early Windows software.
I have a question for you my man. I still use SCSI across 3 24-track recording machines. Way back in the day when ACARD made U160 -> SATA and was almost affordable. Now they are nowhere and fetch premium. Is ther any reasonable solution to Ultra SCSI (68pin internal or SCA80 pin external)? Has anyone out there seen Ultra160 to Anything else in recent decade or so?
I’ll be doing a follow up with PowerBooks, but if it’s anything like the Centris (which it should be similar) the BlueSCSI v2 PowerBook edition should see a nice boost over the v1. And with models priced similarly, that’s certainly the way to go.
I bought the PiSCSI (back when it was a RaSCSI) ages ago. They are two great products that offer different capabilities. There's certainly room for both in my collection.
I have a power Macintosh 7200/120 and idk how to find out if a bluescsi is compatible theres not alot of info. Idk how to set it up for my use. I want to use mac os 9.1 but have no idea how to instal it without the disk as well as tools
Please check out my Vintage Apple Basics series, I think that'll help you a lot. The BlueSCSI will work on the Power Mac 7x00 series, including the 7200. Either a Desktop (50-pin) or external (DB25) model will work well. The 7200 can run a maximum of Mac OS 9.1. However, I'd strongly recommend System 7.6 or Mac OS 8.1 - it'll be faster because your 7200 is using an early generation PowerPC 601 processor. You can use the same SD card and BlueSCSI to create a hard drive disk image (Say 1GB, use the tool DiskJockey to do this) and mount an install CD (Like the Apple Legacy CD), and you'll be all set. This is because the BlueSCSI can mount bootable CD images.
Those SD to IDE adapters don't work well with vintage Macs because the vintage Mac OS is hardcoded to only format drives that were apple-approved back in the day. Third-party formatting tools will work fine to format them, then the OS will install and work normally.
Even with third party tools I’ve never had any luck with them. And in some cases the system won’t even see the device at all. However some mSATA to IDE adapters seem to play nicer.
@@Mac84 Probably related to the same problem. Apple did some really dirty tricks by locking their firmware to only play nice with drives from approve vendors like Quantum and IBM who used to make OEM drives for them. But great video, learned a lot about the new BlueSCSI options!
I've been looking at BlueSCSI for a while now and really like their features and want to get into classic Mac computers. I never had a Mac back in the day. I'm looking for a pre-OS X Mac that is cheap enough and can run (as much as possible) Mac games and software. Do you or anyone else have a recommendation for a system like this?
For laptops I'd recommend some of the pre-G3 PowerBooks, like the 3400c, but you'll be paying a bit for those. For desktops I'd say most of them will do what you want, and the early PowerPC models like the Power Macintosh 7500 and 7600 can be found for really cheap if you don't care about them looking pretty.
The documentation gives you some info: bluescsi.com/docs/Toolbox You’ll need to mount one disc on and ID and then you can switch them. If that doesn’t work there’s a BlueSCSI discord for additional help.
@TortillaYT this is a SCSI emulator. No physical CD drive is required. You place CD disc image files (.iso etc) onto the SD card and it mounts like an actual CD.
@@Mac84 Ahhhhh right right, didn't think it was so simple. I thought maybe you tricked the computer and a physical cd drive with the bluescsi. I click switch and it sets the ID 3 to the ISO but then nothing happens?
The SCSI2SD is an older product which I don’t believe is being sold anymore. While it initially had more compatibility, it required you to format the SD card as if it were for your host system (so for an old Mac that would be the HFS/HFS+ disk format). You also had to use a utility to manually configure each SD card or unit to ensure compatibility. Depending on your set up, this could be challenging, especially for new users. The BlueSCSI uses disk images instead, making the process of setting up a disk for your host system far easier. This also lets modern systems, like Macs or PCs, handle data with old disk formats like HFS, which would be challenging otherwise.
The biggest problem with bluescsi is that its only european sellers are located in the UK. Noone I repeat noone in the EU wants to deal with crazy UK export prices. We need a mainland EU seller. I cant buy 50 bluescsiv2s at UK prices
@@georgwalt7978 We do have an EU seller, OneGeekArmy! He also created the awesome disk jockey software for making images. He's listed right on bluescsi.com. Also we provide all the files so you can print your own pcbs for personal use
@@helfire23 after your comment i digged deeper than the Uk flag one geek army is sporting that confuses a bit and in his FAQ he says “We ship from Belgium to all continental European countries, and all countries of the European Union”. Good news!
Does it have the ability to create a disk image from an internal physical drive? I think that would be incredibly useful if my internal drive failed. @@Mac84
From what I understand the speed differences are pretty negligible and they are both very quick. However that’s just from other reviews and videos I’ve seen. I don’t own one yet.
#BlueSCSI what about creating a BlueSCSI LVDSCSI to SATA adapter board that will let you use Crucial 256GB SSD drives or for that matter Crucial 100TB SSD drives.
Today's SD cards are already plenty fast for vintage Macs. The bottleneck is not with the SD card or the BlueSCSI or similar devices, but with the original SCSI interface chips on these vintage computers. Sure, newer SCSI interfaces and add-on cards are faster, but these weren't common until the later Power Macs. Generally speaking, 8-10 MB/s disk speeds for these vintage systems is plenty quick. People have recently hacked PCI SATA cards to work on Mac OS 9, and that's great, but it isn't an option for older systems.
![[UA] NAVI проти G2 Esports | Blast Premier Fall Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QWlIm4FGESQ/mqdefault.jpg)
BlueSCSI changed my life!
It's hard to hear what Steve is saying because he's so darn good looking!
Thanks for taking a look at the new #BlueSCSI v2! It's really a community effort for all these new features and I wanted to thank you personally for all the effort you put into making these videos, beta testing software, and updating documentation - Vintage Mac collecting wouldn't be the same without you!
Thanks! And thank YOU and everyone in the community for building great tools for us geeky Mac heads.
@@Mac84you guys 😢 Imma cry
@@Mac84 Well done job on the review, Steve! I may pick one up to play around with it soon, once I get some more cash.
A new BlueSCSI lineup is such a major event for the vintage computer hobby! It felt so good as this video popped into my notification feed. The thing is I don't even own any machines I could use one on, is it even normal to be excited about this just to watch other people use it?
Totally!
Rest in peace, Conner drive... 🫡
Toshiba enters the room
I own a Mac Plus and I was a day-0 believer that the BlueSCSI v2 that I soldered myself with a Pico W would come through with nice wireless features and today I am rewarded for my FAITH
Nice! 🎉
So you got the daynaport drivers to work with a Mac plus and bluescsi v2? I tried to get rascsi to work on my Mac plus but it was very buggy…
@@smcic only for a bit using Fetch (ftp client) but it choked on Mac Garden's humongous ftp. I also tried it in System 6 which is not making things easy.
The new WiFi stuff is super exciting. The PiSCSI can already do it I believe, but that device isn’t ideal for internal use, so having a fully internal and truly wireless setup for this is gonna be great. I’m probably going to upgrade my PowerBook 170’s drive with the PicoW module for it at some point.
Good video too. Nuts to see the speeds these can achieve. In any future SCSI device reviews though, I’d love to see them compared to their competitors (ZuluSCSI, MacSD, PiSCSI, etc). Lots of great options out there nowadays with a lot of confusion about what can do what. Would love to see a future video comparing them all if that’s something you’d be up for at some point!
Yes, I reviewed the (then RaSCSI) a while back but only used ethernet at the time.
It’s always nice to have more features to play with. A lot of videos exist with comparisons, but maybe I’ll do one in the future.
@@Mac84 what excites me the most about the BlueSCSI Wi-Fi stuff is how easy it looks like it’s going to be to configure it all… I tried to set up the PiSCSI’s version of it on the past but I haven’t been able to get it to work. Seeing development of a desk accessory for selecting networks and such has me excited!
Wifi ! What world is this !!! This is awesome 😎
Steve’s brain: Quick! Get out the video before they add even more features!
Wow I had no idea wifi was supported. I think I got into vintage computers at a great time with all these hard drive replacements. Several years ago there was no way I could’ve afforded the ssd options that were around.
Just wanted to say thank you to all the BlueSCSI discord members in the off-topic channel who help me with my endless Macintosh problems.
Thank you Steve for that great video, now I need to order the BlueSCSI V2 🙂
Just picked up my first vintage Macs today! I got a LC, a Performa 405 with a Performa plus monitor and a keyboard. They both need to be recapped (which I have no experience with) and one needs a PSU and ram as well as new hard drives. Hopefully I can find all the parts I need to get both of these running!
For a few years now the TI 99/4A computer has had a TIPI- a version of this that allows you to connect early 1980s computers to the internet....
Thanks for the great video on the BlueSCSI II. Might grab one for my SE/30
Great video, Steve!
And thanks for the Disk Jockey mention :)
It's a fantastic tool, it certainly deserves a mention! Thanks for all your amazing work - it's something I use all the time.
Thank you for helping revive these artifacts of computer history! I'm going to install a BlueSCSI v2 in the Macintosh SE I just got at the consignment room at VCF East! And a personal thanks for booting it up at your table there so we could see it working!
Great demo and summary of the awesome #BlueSCSI V2 features!
Great review Steve Love the Ver-2
Sold! Now to buy a Mac!
Amazing! I can’t wait to get one.
Thanks for this great review and deep dive
Just in time! I bought 2 of them the other day
That's great news!! Very informative video, and thanks for sharing.
I love my original BlueSCSI! It's so much fun and a great way to revive your old Mac.
Love the intro Steve. Click, go!
"... nothing lasts forever." Even cold November rain!
Very informative Steve, thanks!
I have a slight issue with a hard drive emulator having more computing power than the computer it’s plugged into 😅
*muffled screams of a Mac LC echo in the background*
Excellent video. I got into mac restoration because of channels like yours. Sadly, I only have Intel Macs/Macbooks and a Power Mac G5 in my collection so far.
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad my content has inspired you. Those systems sounds great, I hope you enjoy them!
"All you do is add a microSD card to your card and there you go"- its more complicated, always! The Amiga side has a LOT of trial and error, obscure SCSI settings and windows setup idiosyncracies- esp trying to het an hda file on that works. But this is a grand overview.
I can’t speak for the Amiga, but I’ve had zero issues with an IBM PS/2, HP Vectra or other PCs using an Adaptec PCI card.
As you said this is meant to be a grand overview and in the video I mention it’s skewed toward the Mac, as it’s what I’m most familiar with.
SCSI is more complicated to use in general, but the BlueSCSI v2 model is the most compatible one yet and has fixed a lot of bugs that were present with the previous generation.
Very cool to see new developments! Nice to see those benchmarks, those hard drives sure are fast but at least now there’s more options! Wi-Fi is also a fun addition, interesting to see how useful it would actually be. Great video!
Great video as usual. One thing you might have overlooked is that ones a disk has been used a while the free space tends to become a pit fragmented and seek times become a greater factor (at least for user experience on mechanical drives), here the sd card might have a great advantage,
Dear @UA-cam
Why the frick did your allmighty algorithms hide this gem of a channel from me, knowing damn well I would eat it up like sliced bread?
I’m glad you found it! 🙂
This guy is SCSI!
Great video Steve 🎉
Someone with a Media 100 NuBus kit needs to test Blue SCSI V2 with it. In the Radius 81/110 tower I had, I had to use FWB HDT to RAID0 stripe four hard drives across both SCSI buses in order to reach the minimum 4 megabytes per second write speeds required for full resolution, 150K per frame video capture. They weren't all matching drives, nor were they the fastest, but working together they were *fast enough*.
That is, after I benchmarked them individually and discovered the slick looking, black IBM drive was a super slow POS. It *looked* like it should be fast with its vertically split case with copper tape sealing the join. The housing fit together like the halves of a Volkswagen flat four engine crankcase, clamping the spindle bearings between the aluminum halves.
With the poky IBM drive replaced it worked and I was able to digitize from a stereo VHS VCR.
I’ve always fancied the PowerMac 6100 DOS, but they are hard to get in England, and the VGA from 25 pin bespoke adaptors are terribly expensive to get hold of. Used to play Dark Forces on my old IMac G4 lamp, with classic loaded.
Hi, Steve from Mac84! 🦖
Crazy good video bro
gives my ideas for my Mac Plus
Sweet vid Steve 😁
throughout vid , well done
It sounds like these devices could be quite good for Amiga computers as well since they also used SCSI hard drives, at least in the earlier models.
According to the compatibility list they are compatible with Amiga systems bluescsi.com/docs/Compatibility
I randomly found this review and product and i decided to give it a try for my vintage sampler with scsi. It seems a lot less expensive than Zulu SCSI and i'm willing to try it and see if it works well for me. I ordered the mini version to plug right into an E-Mu sampler. Do all size micro sd cards work? I need to read more documentation, but your video really made me feel this is a solid tool.
Great vid!
What would be awesome with the wifi would be able to mount the drive on a modern desktop to transfer disk images. In order to get my disk images onto a Powerbook 180 (with internal BlueSCSI), I have to copy the disk images to a BlueSCSI SD card from my Macintosh portable, then from the portable copy the disk image to a floppy, then put the floppy in the powerbook 180 lol. If the powerbook 180 BlueSCSI could mount onto the MacBook Pro through wifi, that would be firkin awesome.
#BlueSCSI is awesome!
Pretty sure its also used outside of the vintage Macintosh community.
Some arcade games ran off of SCSI hard drives or SCSI CD drives and people in those communities are using BlueSCSI's to revive those games!
Oh for sure, but since my channel focuses mostly on vintage Apple gear, that's what I showcased in the video. Since filming this I've also used my BlueSCSI on my PCs and NeXT computer, they both worked well!
I knew they were good, but it's always nice to know how good! I'm a little surprised to find out the wireless performance was so slow. I had thought the SCSI network interfaces had reasonable speeds, but you make it sound like dialup and slower than LocalTalk.
As I mention in the video, it's probably due to a number of factors. This is a beta, so it's very early days, things will improve. It relies on an old software driver for a totally different hardware product that wasn't the fastest either. So the fact that this is working at all is pretty dang cool. I don't think the SCSI connection is the bottleneck here, but it'll be cool to see this develop further.
Great video. I have a question are you using a mac or pc to set up the BlueSCSI firmware and format the micro SD card?
I've used both and haven't had an issue. If you run into trouble, follow the steps online: bluescsi.com/docs/Updating-Firmware
@@Mac84 thank you
I wish there were an 80 pin SCA version for SPARCs. I guess I can stick one in an external Sun 411 case, though.
I've really been waiting for one of these things to get fast enough such that I can use it on a silicon graphics machin. there's a huge hole in the market for an "SSD" of a reasonable speed over ultra wide scsi for a silicon graphics machine.
I'm just about to order one of these to use on my Power Macintosh 7200/90! They look awesome. I've created hard drive images on Disk Jockey which I'm sure will work fine. Just wondering where you find the pre made bootable disk images that include applications, games, etc running System 7.5, etc?
It’ll work great on that machine, you can find some images here: bluescsi.com/docs/BlueSCSI-Images
Thanks @@Mac84 - do you know of any images that include lots of apps/games already installed?
But the most important question Steve...can I use the new WIFI function of Blue SCSI to get my Image Writer on the Internet?
What about SCSI-IDE bridges? I've used them in vintage Amiga computers, but not Macs. They worked well for me.
It's a shame that SCSI never became as mainstream as IDE. The main reason it didn't was corporate greed, I can't imagine it cost anymore than IDE to manufacture, the HDA is where the cost of a hard rive is.
👍
I had a strange thing happen to the MPF-42A in my Performa 636 today...all of a sudden it stopped ejecting. It wouldn't even attempt an eject- the computer would try to eject the disk, then it would freeze for about 30 seconds and reload the disk. The eject motor wouldn't even turn. I removed the motor and put it back on- and now it's ejecting.
No access time comparison? I see the BlueSCSI is 1.15ms. The HDD I'm guessing was 7-ish?
Love my BlueSCSI v2! I have a Performa 631CD and use my BlueSCSI externally plugged into the SCSI input on the back of the machine. My internal IDE hard drive is still working but is there anything similar to the BlueSCSI except for IDE that I could eventually replace my internal HD with?
I’m unsure about IDE adapters, I’m testing some cheap mSATA to IDE adapters that (in very early tests) seem to work. But if I find anything I’ll make a video on them. 👍
@@Mac84 I would be very interested to watch a video about that. I made a note about the mSATA to IDE adapters for my own future reference. Thanks for the helpful reply!
Thanks! I will keep you posted.
I need to get my for my Quadra 650 with ppc 601 upgrade card. But, currently I keep spending money on my phone addiction instead. :) As a side note. I always think about how Apple Crippled so many Macs. Not that a few PC mfgs. didn't do that. But, it just seemed sad.
It might be nice if there were a version that let you use better flash like a SATA disk provides. Of course the power requirements there would be greater.
Today's SD cards are already plenty fast for this task. The bottleneck is not with the SD card or the BlueSCSI or similar devices, but with the original SCSI interface chips on these vintage computers.
Sure, newer SCSI interfaces and add-on cards tend to be faster, but these weren't common until the later Power Macs. Generally speaking, 8-10 MB/s disk speeds for these vintage systems is plenty quick.
@@Mac84 I didn't mean for speed but for write cycles.
@@kungfujesus06 NVMe gen 5 support when?????
@@handenbramilton I'm not suggesting for speed but for longevity and durability. It's incredibly easy to kill an SD card with a normal amount of write cycles.
If a small company were to start remanufacturing scsi and ide drives I believe they would make a killing. It surprises me that a AliExpress type Chinese company already hasn't.
There are several companies that make ide flash modules that plug into ide headers because of how often old PCs are still used for controlling industrial equipment. The only non hobbyist ssd I know of is a 2.5 inch one from the company zheino (I think I got that right). In all cases though they tend to be more expensive relative to their size than most adapters are. Considering SCSI isn't really widely used anymore, even in industrial settings, I doubt companies would have much incentive to make those.
I didn’t know about the Wi-Fi functionality! I’ll have to give that a try. It’s “Raspberry *Pi* Pico”, BTW.
Goofy question as someone who doesn't know much about classic Macs: what does "DOS Compatible" on the front of the Power Macintosh at 16:30 mean? That can't be MS-DOS, so what is it?
Yes, it's MS-DOS. It comes with an expansion card with a full 486 DX/2 and its own RAM.
@@junkdata6242 oh cool thank you!
Yep! Select Macs in the mid 1990's had a PC hardware add-on card with a processor (486 or similar) and everything you needed to run DOS or early Windows software.
I have a question for you my man. I still use SCSI across 3 24-track recording machines. Way back in the day when ACARD made U160 -> SATA and was almost affordable. Now they are nowhere and fetch premium. Is ther any reasonable solution to Ultra SCSI (68pin internal or SCA80 pin external)? Has anyone out there seen Ultra160 to Anything else in recent decade or so?
Wher to get the Mac OS images?
Do they have early 680xx ones as well as powerpc and intel and now arm64 images ?
Macintosh Repository and Macintosh Garden are the best place to grab isos.
What about 68k PowerBook benchmarks? Would I see a performance difference in a 540c between BlueSCSI V1.1 and V2?
I’ll be doing a follow up with PowerBooks, but if it’s anything like the Centris (which it should be similar) the BlueSCSI v2 PowerBook edition should see a nice boost over the v1. And with models priced similarly, that’s certainly the way to go.
@@Mac84 I look forward to that :)
Dang… and my PiSCSI just arrived a few days ago…
I bought the PiSCSI (back when it was a RaSCSI) ages ago. They are two great products that offer different capabilities. There's certainly room for both in my collection.
I have a power Macintosh 7200/120 and idk how to find out if a bluescsi is compatible theres not alot of info. Idk how to set it up for my use. I want to use mac os 9.1 but have no idea how to instal it without the disk as well as tools
Please check out my Vintage Apple Basics series, I think that'll help you a lot. The BlueSCSI will work on the Power Mac 7x00 series, including the 7200. Either a Desktop (50-pin) or external (DB25) model will work well.
The 7200 can run a maximum of Mac OS 9.1. However, I'd strongly recommend System 7.6 or Mac OS 8.1 - it'll be faster because your 7200 is using an early generation PowerPC 601 processor.
You can use the same SD card and BlueSCSI to create a hard drive disk image (Say 1GB, use the tool DiskJockey to do this) and mount an install CD (Like the Apple Legacy CD), and you'll be all set. This is because the BlueSCSI can mount bootable CD images.
Those SD to IDE adapters don't work well with vintage Macs because the vintage Mac OS is hardcoded to only format drives that were apple-approved back in the day. Third-party formatting tools will work fine to format them, then the OS will install and work normally.
Even with third party tools I’ve never had any luck with them. And in some cases the system won’t even see the device at all. However some mSATA to IDE adapters seem to play nicer.
@@Mac84 Probably related to the same problem. Apple did some really dirty tricks by locking their firmware to only play nice with drives from approve vendors like Quantum and IBM who used to make OEM drives for them. But great video, learned a lot about the new BlueSCSI options!
I've been looking at BlueSCSI for a while now and really like their features and want to get into classic Mac computers. I never had a Mac back in the day. I'm looking for a pre-OS X Mac that is cheap enough and can run (as much as possible) Mac games and software. Do you or anyone else have a recommendation for a system like this?
For laptops I'd recommend some of the pre-G3 PowerBooks, like the 3400c, but you'll be paying a bit for those. For desktops I'd say most of them will do what you want, and the early PowerPC models like the Power Macintosh 7500 and 7600 can be found for really cheap if you don't care about them looking pretty.
@@CamiTheWitch Awesome, thank you.
How would one mount their cd images using their bluescsi toolbox cd changer?
The documentation gives you some info: bluescsi.com/docs/Toolbox
You’ll need to mount one disc on and ID and then you can switch them. If that doesn’t work there’s a BlueSCSI discord for additional help.
@@Mac84 Does this require a cd drive to be connected to the mac or am i just being paranoid haha.
@TortillaYT this is a SCSI emulator. No physical CD drive is required. You place CD disc image files (.iso etc) onto the SD card and it mounts like an actual CD.
@@Mac84 Ahhhhh right right, didn't think it was so simple. I thought maybe you tricked the computer and a physical cd drive with the bluescsi. I click switch and it sets the ID 3 to the ISO but then nothing happens?
How does this differ from sd2scsi?
The SCSI2SD is an older product which I don’t believe is being sold anymore. While it initially had more compatibility, it required you to format the SD card as if it were for your host system (so for an old Mac that would be the HFS/HFS+ disk format). You also had to use a utility to manually configure each SD card or unit to ensure compatibility.
Depending on your set up, this could be challenging, especially for new users. The BlueSCSI uses disk images instead, making the process of setting up a disk for your host system far easier.
This also lets modern systems, like Macs or PCs, handle data with old disk formats like HFS, which would be challenging otherwise.
I'd like to hear your take on the ZuluSCSI RP2040 vs BlueSCSI v2.
I'd be happy to do a comparison once I get one.
Where can I buy a blue scsi ?
www.BlueSCSI.com
Additional links are in the description
The biggest problem with bluescsi is that its only european sellers are located in the UK. Noone I repeat noone in the EU wants to deal with crazy UK export prices. We need a mainland EU seller. I cant buy 50 bluescsiv2s at UK prices
@@georgwalt7978 We do have an EU seller, OneGeekArmy! He also created the awesome disk jockey software for making images. He's listed right on bluescsi.com. Also we provide all the files so you can print your own pcbs for personal use
@@helfire23 after your comment i digged deeper than the Uk flag one geek army is sporting that confuses a bit and in his FAQ he says “We ship from Belgium to all continental European countries, and all countries of the European Union”. Good news!
Was hoping to find a us seller the closest I got is Canadian so settling for that lol.
Can I use this to back up the HD in my Performa 580CD?
Yes, you can use it to emulate an external hard drive and use it to transfer files and backup data.
Does it have the ability to create a disk image from an internal physical drive? I think that would be incredibly useful if my internal drive failed. @@Mac84
You just have all the Macs, it seems like.
How is BlueSCSI compared to ZuluSCSI? Is one faster than the other? Is one more compatible/reliable?
From what I understand the speed differences are pretty negligible and they are both very quick. However that’s just from other reviews and videos I’ve seen. I don’t own one yet.
#BlueSCSI what about creating a BlueSCSI LVDSCSI to SATA adapter board that will let you use Crucial 256GB SSD drives or for that matter Crucial 100TB SSD drives.
Today's SD cards are already plenty fast for vintage Macs. The bottleneck is not with the SD card or the BlueSCSI or similar devices, but with the original SCSI interface chips on these vintage computers.
Sure, newer SCSI interfaces and add-on cards are faster, but these weren't common until the later Power Macs. Generally speaking, 8-10 MB/s disk speeds for these vintage systems is plenty quick.
People have recently hacked PCI SATA cards to work on Mac OS 9, and that's great, but it isn't an option for older systems.
Even working those drives are too damn noisy.
Sdcards are dying much sooner even having no moving parts at all
Unlike old SCSI hard drives, SD cards are inexpensive, easy to backup, and are readily available today.