Akai S1000 / S1100 samplers

Probably most old 50 pins SCSI harddisks will work with the S1000. The sampler will only reconize/format 512 MB if the disk is larger.

Last week I build a SCSI Cf reader/writer) with the AKAI IB ID2SC SCSI-IDE interface with a standard IDE card reader attched to it. The AKAI SCSI-IDE interface is designed for the S5000/S600, but wotks perfect (format/read and write) with my S1100 (and S3200XL and Ensoniq ASR-X)

Cheers

I don not think you have to worry that much about brand, model and build-year of a SCSI harddisk.

I used several sized in the past. I even used 32Gb 68 pins harddisk in the past with a 50-68 pin converter with a S3000XL, S3200XL, ASR-X etc and never bough/usedt a harddisk that did not work.

Personally I would look for a 500 MB or 1 GB 50 Pins SCSi harddisk in your situation. The Syquest is 135 MB. This is pretty small.

I have a 500MB disk and a 2 GB disk at home somewhere as back-up. I will have a look for the brand and model number and will post later.

Cheers

• I've once got my hands on 5 seagate SCSI HDD's of 500 Mb, which have been kept in storage for 15-20 yr as spares to a very old mainframe. This 'till the day this machine was replaced, and I was given these as gift. They all worked on the AKAI, but after a couple of days use, they went failing one after the other \u2026 Not a success.
• Other SCSI drives, not much of a success, most of them break down after the 1st spin (just too old or worn out I guess), or were already broken.
• Then I got a Syquest 5 1/4" 44 Mb removable disk drive, with a bunch of disks. The previous owner was a hardcore oldskool mac user, and have used these disks a lot. To my surprise, I could re-format (=arrange!) these with the AKAI and they work still very well. We're talking of technology released in 1988. The same applies to the Syquest 5 1/4" 88 Mb and 200 Mb models (which I also got and tried).
• I once got a syquest 3 1/2" and the drive broke down after a few hours of service, but it did work with the AKAI.
• I had mixed experiences with CD-ROM drives, it seems that, the older the drive, the better chance for compatibility, the best being these 2x-speed models from yamaha.

PeWe you are the man.
If I had a time machine I would send that info back to myself in 2001 and save a few months of messing about.
Zips and jaz are the way I went, and haven't looked back since.
Old moving parts are bad news, my knees are telling me.

While I'm messaging, I have some 2Mb and 8Mb S1000/s1100 memory in my RAM store.
I've also been offered a few more S1000 and S3000 from a studio clearance, and I don't have much room for that stuff any more. Interested parties who can collect from Greater London area might make themselves known.
Obviously if the samplers have RAM requirements I would combine the bits.



On Thursday, 8 May 2014, 10:18, PeWe <ha-pewe@gmx.de> wrote:
 
  
The Syquest 44MB drive cannot read/write 88MB media.
IIRC (I have several of these drives but rarely use now) - the
      88MB drive can read 44MB media but doesn´ format/write (on) these.
No clue about the 200meg drives.

Have in mind the drives and media cardridges aren´t very reliable.
It´s risky to buy used media cardridges because the internal
      media-disk rotates and gets worn out over time.
The drive itself has movable parts too and like a cassette tape
      recorder player.- the "azimuth" should match.
Media written on one drive is sometimes not fully readable on the
      other or worst, not accessable at all.

You should look for Synthax, Hybrid Arts and Syntec syndrives
      @ebay eventually.
I have a bunch of these in 2 HU and 1HU configurations.
I´m using SCSI harddrives (mostly 1GB formattet to 500meg/512
      sectors) for AKAI, larger ones fpr EMU.
Sooner or later, other modern solutions should replace these,-
      make backups befor the SCSI drives fail.

My favourite backup is Fujitsu 3.5" MOD (magneto optical drive),-
      works flawlessly w/ AKAI S-1000 & S-1100 w/ Verbatim 230MB/512
      sector optical media.
For EMU EOS samplers, same drive works excellent w/ larger media
      too, Verbatim and Fujifilm 640MB/2048 sector optical media.

Old Apple (w/ caddy !) SCSI-CD-ROM drives work flawlessly w/ AKAI
      S-1000/1100.
TEAC 2x / 4x SCSI-CD-ROM drives too ! Some 8x also ...
Never use anything faster than 8x,- better not more than 4x
      speed,- for AKAI S series samplers.
EMU, Kurzweil, Yamaha, all work w/ larger HDDs and faster CD-ROM
      dives and burners.

When you have an old PC (Pentium IV/ Win XP p.ex.) w/ working PCI
      slots, you can use a older Adaptec (2404 ?) SCSI card w/ mini
      50-pin SCSI connector using a cable "mini 50 > Centronics 50"
      to connect SCSI drives to the computer,- or use a old Mac PPC 7500
      or G3 beige w/ SCSI connector and the SCSI director application to
      manage SCSI drives.
You can make 1:1 SCSI copies of AKAI- and other CD-ROMs w/ the
      "Toast" and/or "Roxio" applications.
Make images (ISO) from AKAI CD-ROMs as backups on PC.

The EMXP application for PC now deals w/ a range of vintage
      samplers,- AKAI S-1000 included.
http://www.emxp.net/

P.

Am 08.05.2014 01:07, schrieb racciolo@...:

  
>Now that is EXACTLY the kind of answer I was looking for! :) Thank you very much for that and for sharing your knowledge.
>So could all those drives read the various sizes of
              "floppies" (44, 88 and 200mb) or would each drive only
              read its specific sized disk?
>
>I'll keep my eyes out for one of those Syquest drives.
>
>Let me know if you think of any other pre-1990 SCSI
              goodies :)
>
>