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Mac Daniel's Advice

Older Mac, Newer SCSI

- 2000.11.15

Q: My Mac 6200CDhas a 25-pin SCSI connector, and I would like to use an external hard drive or CD-RW. Most of them come with the newer 50-pin or 68-pin SCSI-2 or Fast and Wide SCSI. Can I use any of these newer drives with my Mac?

A: Yes. I had this issue just before selling my beige G3. I was doing a backup with a whole new SCSI burner. I had the 25-pin connector in the back of my Mac, but the cable that shipped with the burner was a 50-pin cable. I scrambled to find an adapter or cable somewhere and finally found it. From experience, a cable with 50-pin or 68-pin SCSI connector goes to a Centronics connector - this is what I have seen most of the time - in the back of the peripheral. I'm talking about the bigger Centronics, since there are two sizes.

All you have to do is to get a cable that goes from Centronics to male 25-pin, or a cable that uses the right connection in the back of the peripheral and that has a male 25-pin connector on the other end.

They really work, with only one limitation. It will be limited in performance since 25-pin connectors do not offer the same transfer speed as 50 or 68, but you get to use the hardware without getting a new Mac.

For example, my 10x burner was limited to 4x because the connector could not sustain anything faster, but if your backup is on the line, you are only happy to see the thing working, trust me on that :-)

Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.

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