> Looks like
those hard drives are supposed to be hot-pluggable too,
> it's too bad they aren't standard drives inside of those modules,
> those I could have used, these things I can't see any way to use them
> unless I can figure out some way to hook up to the rack as a whole.
Double check the drive connectors. Make sure they aren't
*80* pins like the adapter on the tape drive. If so,
they are all ScA drives and very commonly used.
Oh, these drives are definitely
very strange. Made in Singapore by IBM
Singapore, the connector is like nothing I've ever seen -- it's in four
separate little sections, which are 3, 3, 4, and 8 pins wide, but
double-sided, and with spaces in between them. The rest of what's in
the plastic module is 3 LEDs on the "front panel" which are tied to a
small board at that end of the module -- this has what appears to be a
bunch of coils on it and assorted surface-mount parts, and a chip that's
not packaged but under a blob of epoxy. Then at the back end of the
module is another small board that contains a voltage regulator (LM317T),
a couple of diodes, and some capacitors. And one chip with a sticker
saying "Part No. 31H8183", plus the external connector, which is 3 rows
of 24 holes each, though it's obvious looking at the inside of the
connector that not all of those holes have contacts in them. This
resembles nothing that I'm familiar with.
And I have a *LOT* of these, two big boxes of them still sitting out in
my car...
Nothing that gives you a clue as to how big the drives are? (e.g., if
they
are 1G, probably not worth the time to sort it all out...)