I usually look here to make sure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI
Vintage Macs had onbaord SCSI-1 with 50pin flat ribbon cables. The 50pins are crunched to an external DB25 port. My biggest Mac SCSI HDDs are 10GB, one is SCSI-2 68pins, but it has an adapter.
Basically all SCSI devices are downward compatible, given you have the proper adapter. Some people run SCA devices with their old Macs NCR host adapter.
I would try to acquire something from ebay like this one http://www.ebay.de/itm/73-GB-SCSI-Festplatte-68-pol-MAP3735NP-S26361-H75...
Amazon seems to sell such stuff too - alas pricing for new devices is astronomically.

Hi MacNut
I've just set up my brother's old LC475 (albeit with a full 68040 chip) for my 4 year old daughter to play on and as an introduction to computers and windowed interfaces. It's running on 36MB RAM with a 4GB HDD and Mac OS 8.1. I've given her a Wacom A5 tablet so that she can paint in KidPix and Photoshop. It suits her well.
I have many old HDDs ranging in size from 120MB to 1GB which I'll let you have for next to nothing. The only thing is that they are heavy and the postage may be prohibitive. Send me a note if you are interested. If you are in the States, then subscribe to LEM Swap List (LEM = Low End Mac). You'll find it at: http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/
Also in the States Gamba is very knowledgable, helpful and a good source of old mac bits and pieces. You'll find him at: http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/

I have one of those which I haven't yet plugged into my IIfx. I'm waiting for the 68-pin SCSI cable to come. You'll really need a FWB Jackhammer or ATTO SiliconExpress IV for it. I still ahven't figured out yet how I will format it. 36x 2GB drives will fill my window...

This one looks rather affordable: http://www.amazon.de/73GB-IBM-IC35L073UCDY10-0-U320-SCSI-SSA/dp/B003PW3B...
Maybe you can find something similar in your country plus the needed SCA to 50pin adapter?
Craigslist.org might help
From todays view, everything back than had crazy pricing - e.g. thinking of 2MB bricks for my MacII...

I stopped selling on ebay years ago and refuse using paypal until today. I am buying at ebay occasionally - low price stuff - and never got into problems so far.

@24bit, that is one mean SCSI disk. 10,000 RPM too, it will really make a noise

You would be better off to look for SCSI drives 10 GB or smaller if you intend to run a Mac OS pre 8.1, and then you'd likely partition to 2 GB or smaller. And yes, these drives will have 50 pin connectors, for either SCSI 1 or 2 - and hopefully they will also have terminating resistors (remember those?), if its to be used as a main internal HD.

Of course soudesune´s kind offers would make things easiest.
Something like this might work too:
http://www.ebay.de/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150703327371&clk_r...
There may be also a solution here: http://68kmla.org/wiki/SCSI_harddisk_replacement_options
This one looks cool too: http://a4000t.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_reviews_info&product...

Big SCSI drives should be no problem, as they are "intelligent" devices, in this case SIZE really doesn´t matter Of course older Mac Systems will want a 70GB drive to be partitioned. I have a smaller 10k rpm IBM in my 7100 (old server drive) and noise is not an issue for me. Some drives are really disturbing, I recall my 5,25 by 4 inches Fujitsu - nearly as heavy as a washing machine´s motor with about the same sound.

Partitioning tools are to be found here:
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/apple-hd-sc-setup-753-patch
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/lido-756

ebay sucks; many of the product descriptions there are simply wrong - I canceled my buyers account and will never buy there again.

Anyway, in every bigger city there are some old repair Mac freaks which sell old stuff. You normally get a hold on these folks through Macintosh clubs which are all around the world in every big city. Normally, these clubs have a website with a president who has a telephone number. Try calling one of those and ask. Also, try the professional or semi-professional vendors at ebay; they often make their address and phone number public so that people buy directly from them instead through ebay. They tend to have a lot on store which they do not offer through ebay. They are not as cheap as the anonymus ebay vendors but I have had postive experiences with the quality of the hardware. Also, if they are professionals they have to grant you six months warranty (at least according to European law).

The m-ware guys have plenty of drives in stock, I´m almost tempted.
Those devices will not be available for ever.
http://www.amazon.de/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&sshmPath=at-a-glance&isAmazonFu...
Put "SCSI HDD" in the search field and admire. SCA to 50pin adapters are available as well.

As a side note, I kept two sets of termination resistor packs (3 little combs) for what reason ever.
If anybody wants those I´m ready to send a letter.

24bit:

Big SCSI drives should be no problem, as they are "intelligent" devices, in this case SIZE really doesn´t matter

Post Mac OS 8.1 and HFS+ perhaps... maybe. But before this? Then size is definitely an issue.

Additionally, the limit of 65,535 allocation blocks resulted in files having a "minimum" size equivalent 1/65,535th the size of the disk. Thus, any given volume, no matter its size, could only store a maximum of 65,535 files. Moreover, any file would be allocated more space than it actually needed, up to the allocation block size. When disks were small, this was of little consequence, because the individual allocation block size was trivial, but as disks started to approach the 1 GB mark, the smallest amount of space that any file could occupy (a single allocation block) became excessively large, wasting significant amounts of disk space. For example, on a 1 GB disk, the allocation block size under HFS is 16 KB, so even a 1 byte file would take up 16 KB of disk space. Source; Wikipedia on HFS

Hi all,
Many thanks for the links and the mention of SuperSpot. I'll go look for it. I probably will put the 72GB drive into an external casing, create 5x 2GB HFS drives and leave the rest as one big HFS+ drive. That should be OK.
I must say that, on the whole, I've had good experiences with sellers on eBay and the LEM swap list in both Europe and the States. I've only once had to leave negative feedback.

BTW, if it is of any help, I've gotten DVD-ROM drives to work on Mac OS 9.2.2. I have a Pioneer DVD-304 and the magic driver is the Pioneer CD-ROM v2.29 and the modified Apple CD/DVD-ROM driver. Unless somebody wants them immediately, I'l stick them up in due course. My to-do list is very long.

I was trying to remember racking my brain trying to figure which computer and what drive it was that I put in that was giving me the issue where it wouldn't see the full size of the drive. It was my G4 and again it was several years ago the 29 Gig drive it came with was showing signs of being near death. I replaced it I believe a 2 or 300 gig drive and it only seen a fraction of the disk space. There was some limitation specific to the early G4, OS9 or the version of OSX I was running. Grrr...I wish my brain would work to remember this stuff, I guess this is what happens when you hit 40? I had to modify, download, install something or other to get it to work and I remember it being a pain in the butt but that's it.

Yes, nearly all the G4's could only handle a drive of 128GB or less. The QuickSilver 2002 and the MDD had a 48-bit LBA and could handle drives up to the maximum available. Some mistakenly believe that only the MDD supported this - I had a QS2002 in the UK and it took a 500GB drive perfectly. Wish I hadn't sold it.

For both of these, it also required OSX 10.2 installed (the MDD required 10.2 as a minimum anyway), but then the full drive was accessible in OS9. OS9 had it's own limits on volume size, ie. can't boot off anything larger than 192GB (a 200Gb drive formats to 187GB so it's fine), but OS9 can access drives larger than 192GB.

Solution was usually to put an Acard ATA PCI card in, which supported four more ATA drives of any size, if you had the space and the power. I have one in one of my DA's to support old 500Gb and 250GB drives.

@bertyboy:

- I had a QS2002 in the UK and it took a 500GB drive perfectly. Wish I hadn't sold it.

Spotted this on TradeMe. Too hard to tell if its a 2002 and the seller is feigning cluelessness, but the pictures are pretty good. Looks like it has a SCSI card and the vid card looks like VGA & DVI-D. I notice another QS plus some PCs in background of 1st pic. Current bid $1:50

Heck! a B/W G3 in mint condition here Wish I was in Auckland right now

@MikeTomTom,

Been watching both of them for days. I'm going after the G3 definitely.

The QuickSilver series of pics are strange - the first pic is a QS, the second is a DA and the same pic was used to sell a DA by this seller at the weekend for about $20, the last pic is the back of a Gigabit Ethernet (power in and out), so what am I bidding on ?
I'm only going to last minute this if it's still under a certain price. I am aware that if I can get a real bargain I can cannibalise one of my DA's for parts (I can re-use the cables, hard drives, RAM, etc in other G4's, but then I'd have a spare (working) power supply too ...... And another trip to Melbourne lined up for the new year.

@bertyboy: I wish you good luck (+ no other bidders) on that G3, it is a beaut by the looks of it. I'm after one myself so you're lucky I'm not in NZ at the mo'.

You're right about those pics, I didn't look closely enough. The seller claims to have 5 like it for sale. Probably a random selection of pics. Perhaps he/she is truly un-knowledgable and thinks they are the same, going by the form factor alone. You'd think he'd be capable of reading the label printed on the back of them, tho'.

Getting a spare DA PSU will be handy too. I'm still on the lookout for one. Might take a closer look on the ATX cable conversion kit I'd seen via here which leads to here the latter is perhaps the easier solution.

I only paid $10 for my last DA and if I get the G3 it'll be all I need to run native OS 8.6 and OS 9. I had a G3 B&W in the UK - which I took apart, cleaned until it shone and put it back together again, but sold it before emmigrating. Still got my eyes on a 333MHz PowerBook G3 Series (Lombard) that my office will look to trash soon. It's immaculate, with an Apple carry-bag (presumably from the dealer) and all the discs and cables.
If you needed some PC100 RAM or some marginal PC133, nothing bigger than a 256MB tho, I seem to have stacks. The PC133 works in the DA for OS9 and such, even OSX 10.2, but OSX 10.3 KP's with it. I've already max'd out my Cube so if you need it I can include it with the PSU. Did you need some ADB mice as well ?

@bertyboy: That is incredibly generous and kind of you. But, you should keep hold of the PSU as they are rarer than hen's teeth and you may just regret giving it away one day (and I'm in no hurry to get one, its just a "one of these days" fix-it job for me).

The Cube, I really think you should put it up on TM or ebay, as they are about as desirable to collectors as a TAM and fetch much higher prices than better Macs such as DP DA's do. ADB mice I have no need for, but PC100 RAM (or PC66) I would like to get 3 sticks of, esp. if they're double-sided low profile and 128 MB or greater (even 64 MB sticks would be OK).

So if you can throw some low profile PC100 my way please let me know (no rush for this 'tho as it is getting close to the silly season). Good luck on getting that office Lombard, too.

Ah the Cube, immacualte condition, in its (resealed) original box with all the extras. Don't think it'll ever be for sale, it's a piece of art to pass to my kids when they are old enough.

Fingers crossed I get the B&W G3 and then I may stop collecting Macs.

well yes of course, when we say stop collecting we only mean syop collecting anything not considered a collectors item, funds permitting, a TAM, Quadra 800, PM8200, iMac G4 are all collectable.

Edit:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/apple/desktops/auction-426016204.htm

Well, I've seen PMG5's go for less than this. That was enough to buy 10 PMG4's. Needless to say I didn't get it. I'm sure it just means I'll get something better next week.

Well, in some way you just can't stop collecting. I'm mostly into collecting software and I recently got rid of a second generation iMac G5 that was my main computer just two months ago. However, a friend just offered me a Power Mac G5 for free. I also found an ad recently for a Macintosh II and a Quadra 700 that I will probably acquire. I have a friend who needs a hard disk for his SE/30 so I thought I might take the hard drive from the Quadra. Also, my sister got a last generation 20" iMac G5 that I will probably take care of soon as she gets fed up with it...

Oh, and look what Santa Claus brought me last night...

Topical but off-topic - but we're not a mad collector like Nicolas Cage.

If you don't understand:
topical - believed he sold his first issue Action Comics, featuring Superman, this week for over $2m.
off-topical - nothing to do with Macs
mad - he named his son Kal-El after Supermans name on Krypton. We may be keen, but we're not mad.

@bertyboy:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/apple/desktops/auction-426016204.htm
Well, I've seen PMG5's go for less than this. That was enough to buy 10 PMG4's. Needless to say I didn't get it. I'm sure it just means I'll get something better next week.

Thats a real pity. I'm of the opinion tho' that the b/w G3 is fast becoming the next "collectible" Mac. A few years back there were so many coming up on ebay now hardly any at all and folks are starting to bid fairly high just to get one. I hope I can get one before they become like a TAM or a Cube.

Speaking of which, when you said earlier...

If you needed some PC100 RAM or some marginal PC133, nothing bigger than a 256MB tho, I seem to have stacks. The PC133 works in the DA for OS9 and such, even OSX 10.2, but OSX 10.3 KP's with it. I've already max'd out my Cube so if you need it I can include it with the PSU.

I mis-read that as you had a Cube you didn't want and was about to give it away! Duh! I really should get my eyes tested, again

Hence my dumb advice about you should be selling it...

Is the Cube really that collectible? I've seen several for sale in Sweden the last few months, they are not free of course but they are not few either, and most of the sellers also have matching Apple displays (often the 15" model unfortunately) and the speakers included.

Guess you could fall for the fan-less compact design, foretelling the arrival of Mac Mini. It dosen´t carry any intriguing HW. Not even for it´s time, but it´s a good example on Macintosh thinking. A box that can sit quiet on your desk and enough good-looking to be kept there. Instead of hiding under the desk on a little trolly and nesting cables collecting dust and, so on…

The Cube is probably the most beautiful mac yet made, although I'm very partial to the little mac minis and the Mac SE. It's a pity that the damn things overheated so easily.

@T-1000:

Is the Cube really that collectible?

Down my way (Australia & New Zealand) its becoming that way. They are quite rare on ebay etc and when they do come up they tend to sell for much higher prices than similarly specced Mac G4s (even more than better G4s). They don't even have to be in working condition and can have cracked cases they still seem to sell easily. Eye-candy sells

Eye-candy sells

Good expression.