o2 - Swap CD-ROM for a SCSI2SD?

[stormy]

Hi all,

With my recently acquired o2 I was thinking: I do not use the cd-rom for anything. Since the cd-rom has a 50pin scsi connection cable up the top of the machine, would it be feasible to take the cd-rom out and putting a scsi2sd / zuluscsi / bluescsi in its place? I think this might be more useful because most IRIX software I can get would be disk images downloaded from the internet, which can be easily put on to an sd-card solution. I'll never have physical media.

I guess all I need to know is: 1. Can that work? 2. Does anyone think it's a silly idea and 3. I of course do not want to ruin the look of the o2, so any ideas around being able to re-attach the cd bezel, allowing me to pop my hand inside to change SD cards would be helpful.

 

[7spirals]

It will work for sure. I've used both a ZuluSCSI and SCSI2SD on my O2 R12k and O2 R5k. You just need to set the SCSI2SD up properly for CDROM devices using the utility (sounds like you already know this). You can even have up to 4 SCSI IDs setup for different CDROM virtual drives and/or an extra hard disk or two.

The problem will definitely be the asthetics. What I would do is gut a cheap 5.25" CD or DVD drive then drill out some mounting holes for standoffs. Make sure they don't push up too tall. Then mount the SCSI2SD on the standoffs and run your cabling. Then you can secure the drive cover for the front and it'll all look natural.

I think that you can 3D print a drive cover, but alas, there are too few 3D models for such things and you'd probably have to beg someone to 3D scan their own if you are missing yours. People frequently break off the drive covers and ruin the look of the O2.

I guess if you did 3D print one, you could also leave some holes for activity (read/write) LED indicators to attach to the SCSI2SD, perhaps even an SD-slot, but I would only recommend that if you have two SCSI2SD cards and you can use one externally to program the SD cards.

 

[stormy]

cheers for the ideas @7spirals