this is very essential for the use of my ("old") s3200 - I need a medium to store my programs, samples etc.

NO, I don't want to lose my data:

1) using the inernal disk drive: very high error rate (the same goes to the disk drive of my s1000), I've heard the rumour, that the vertiacal position of the drive is bad for the disk condidition!
Many (new!) disks get read errors after some months or even days.

note: there was an internal MO drive built in (I bought the sampler used), but it was DEFECT - so I disconnected it from the sampler.
I do not want to keep ALL my data on one HD, because if this crashes, everything is lost.

OK, then what to do?

2) ZIP drive: it works via scsi, but there appear also read errors, and IF one appears (well by chance - reading, writing), this means the read error will stay forever on my zip disk. so this is also very insecure... there are even more read errors than on my floppy disks (which are also very unsafe)

SO is there any OK WORKING ZIP drive model to get?

3) and what about JAZ?

4) or other external drives possiblities?

5) any way to get my files to MAC or PC? I've read somewhere that MAC can read the SCSI 1 of my 3200 - if yes, I could transfer my files to my G4 via SCSI!! (this would be worth the effort of an scsi interface)

6) The akai zips can't be identefied in the INTERNAL ZIP drive of my powermac G4 - is there any way to make them read by my G4?


[This message has been edited by eisblau (edited 01-28-2001).]

[This message has been edited by eisblau (edited 01-28-2001).]

1. Disks do get older and will be less reliable. Especially after a few years of inactivity. You can replace it, and if you fear vertical positions (don't know why, but if) you can always mount it horizontal. there's enough place in a S3200 to drill some holes and mount a disk.

2. Zip drives work OK, but as with all SCSI devices you need hood SCSI cables. If you use old PC printer cables or parallell cables you surely gonna loose data. The cable provided with the zip is ideal, short and high quallity. If you take care a Zip disk is really reliable, but stay away from magnetic fields and use new disks reguarly. I never had problems with my zips (even the drive fell of the table a few times and it still works.) It can take some abuse, but as a general rule, be carefull, although it's a lot more reliable as a normal diskette.

3. Your S3200 won't benefit, as it only can format up to 512MB (I think), all the rest is just wasted space, and JAZ is far more sensitive to problems as Zip. in short, no good for samplers.

4. Syquest, CD-R, HD's, .. You said your S3200 has a build in MO, why not build in a zip drive? (cheaper as an extarnal model.)

5. You can connect your sampler to your PC, no problem. That way you can transfer sampler to and from your Mac. BUT you cannot access Mac disks via the sampler., due to different format.

6. Yes there is a way. Use a prog called AKAI interpreter, wich allows to read and write on akai disks.

OK, I've bought a very expensive and "hood" SCSI cable (specially designed for safe scsi transfer) and new ZIP disks, and the errors still occure on ZIP disk every 3rd time is use tbe ZIP drive with my sampler!
when this error occurs, the ZIP disk seems to get damaged on this track/sector!
I wonder how a ZIP disk can get damaged??? - The error never disappears again, even after formating it again! This can't be true - whats a technicans view of this? Is there any way to manipulate the scsi/zip connection/processing of my sampler?

I set MO drive to off and change the scsi drive id to 6, local scsi to 5 - and the ZIP id to 6 and termination to on.

I guess somehow the read/write trouble depends on the
1) data exchange speed - maybe the zip data moves a bit too fast for my akai?
2) or the data handling of akai - if there are mor than 10 entries on the ZIP, it is very sure my ZIP disk gets uncorrectable errors.

the worst thing is, that the ZIP would be fantastic, if there would not appear these disk errors from time to time.

please help!