Ibm model 30, both 8086 and 286, xt-ide with compactflash is the way to go. These also work with 16b AT machines and up to Pentium 3 so nothing to hold you back. I'm a fan of the Sergey xt-cf v4 but there's a lot of them available, each with its own quirks.
With this in your system you can still have the original HDD connected and still use it. Even as secondary drive.

Disconnecting it will save the spinup count, but lack of use may let the bearings get stuck and cause stiction . So always make sure you connect the hard drive two or three times a year to keep it going.

waterbeesje wrote on 2023-10-13, 20:10:

Ibm model 30, both 8086 and 286, xt-ide with compactflash is the way to go. These also work with 16b AT machines and up to Pentium 3 so nothing to hold you back. I'm a fan of the Sergey xt-cf v4 but there's a lot of them available, each with its own quirks.
With this in your system you can still have the original HDD connected and still use it. Even as secondary drive.

Disconnecting it will save the spinup count, but lack of use may let the bearings get stuck and cause stiction . So always make sure you connect the hard drive two or three times a year to keep it going.

thanks a lot! ill do that for the original disk. wich midel of xt-ide you suggest me for my model30 286?

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-10-13, 16:37:

I wanted to preserve the original hard disk of my IBM PS/2 model 30 286. It currently has its original disc, WDI-325Q which is […]
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I wanted to preserve the original hard disk of my IBM PS/2 model 30 286. It currently has its original disc, WDI-325Q which is ESDI, very rare and expensive.

- I was thinking of removing it and replacing it with something more modern. Do you think an XT-IDE with a compact flash could replace it?

- By physically disconnecting the original disk drive, will I keep it functioning over time or will it break even when disconnected?

Tnks

#1 There is also a special SD card adapter in the works for just this machine. (and the model 25). it replaces the hard drive directly. I havent heard anything about it in a while.

#2 Those drives are hot garbage. They will fail because its Tuesday. If it currently works, I say use it. Might as well get some enjoyment out of it.

Note that using an XT-IDE card on a AT class machine needlessly cuts the IDE interface in half (8 bits instead of 16 bits)
In theory you can put a multi-IO card in one slot with everything but IDE disabled (or just card one of those CD-ROM oriented ones but that lets you set it to 1F0 and IRQ 15) and an XT-IDE Universal BIOS option ROM in another slot. But the PS/2 is short on slots as it is.
In another thread I thought about designing an "AT-IDE" card that would simply be an IDE interface and an option ROM on one card, but haven't followed through with it. Another limitation here is that the PS/2 30-286 doesn't shadow option ROMs, so really you'd rather have a 16-bit wide XT-IDE Universal BIOS (odd/even chips) too. In that other thread, we were talking about how all ISA memory cards on the same 128K boundary need to agree as to whether they are 8- or 16-bit wide, so if you had a 16-bit wide BIOS ROM at C800, the VGA BIOS had better be 16-bit wide too.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-10-13, 23:53:

Note that using an XT-IDE card on a AT class machine needlessly cuts the IDE interface in half (8 bits instead of 16 bits)
In theory you can put a multi-IO card in one slot with everything but IDE disabled (or just card one of those CD-ROM oriented ones but that lets you set it to 1F0 and IRQ 15) and an XT-IDE Universal BIOS option ROM in another slot. But the PS/2 is short on slots as it is.
In another thread I thought about designing an "AT-IDE" card that would simply be an IDE interface and an option ROM on one card, but haven't followed through with it. Another limitation here is that the PS/2 30-286 doesn't shadow option ROMs, so really you'd rather have a 16-bit wide XT-IDE Universal BIOS (odd/even chips) too. In that other thread, we were talking about how all ISA memory cards on the same 128K boundary need to agree as to whether they are 8- or 16-bit wide, so if you had a 16-bit wide BIOS ROM at C800, the VGA BIOS had better be 16-bit wide too.

I don't know if I understand correctly, do you mean that if I use an 8 bit xt-ide card I would also limit the vga to being 8 bit?

I don't know if I understand correctly, do you mean that if I use an 8 bit xt-ide card I would also limit the vga to being 8 bit?

No, it means that the IDE interface transfers would be limited to 8bits, rather than the regular 16bits... so transfer rate will suffer. On an XT-class machine this isn't much of an issue as anything connected to an XT-IDE interface is likely going to be faster than whatever original disk system they were fitted with. It's more of an issue on an AT (and *definitely* on a 386) or higher where they usually talk 16bit wide data as standard.

The best option is if you can find a multi-IO or IDE controller card with an option rom socket and fit the XT IDE *rom* in there... but there's not a lot of these.

There's the added complication of accessing the XT IDE rom disk routines across the ISA bus (which is slow), rather than in main memory (which is fast)... shadowing the rom to ram helps here on later machines, but it sounds like that's not practical in the case of your PS/2. Again that's another point of slowdown.

Reflecting on all of the above I'd still choose the XT-IDE solution over using an ancient spinning drive. With the age of it now, you are well beyond the end of the bathtub/bell reliability curve.

It's true: the 8b xt-ide card will limit the ide transfer speed quite noticeable on any regular 286/36/486. Then again, this is PS/2 with the most horrible HDD they ever produced next to the Deathstar. The 8b card actually will still be faster than the WDC325 (as well as the 30MB or 40MB drives the system came with). Besides, you won't actually run a model 30-296 because of the incredibly speed anyway.

In all of my model 30s the original harddrive is still connected AND is used as boot drive. Except for the FDD only model of course.
I just like the smooth HDD sound 😁

Edit:
Reliability... Next to none. But I don't store critical data on these machines any way 😉

waterbeesje wrote on 2023-10-14, 16:35:

It's true: the 8b xt-ide card will limit the ide transfer speed quite noticeable on any regular 286/36/486. Then again, this is […]
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It's true: the 8b xt-ide card will limit the ide transfer speed quite noticeable on any regular 286/36/486. Then again, this is PS/2 with the most horrible HDD they ever produced next to the Deathstar. The 8b card actually will still be faster than the WDC325 (as well as the 30MB or 40MB drives the system came with). Besides, you won't actually run a model 30-296 because of the incredibly speed anyway.

In all of my model 30s the original harddrive is still connected AND is used as boot drive. Except for the FDD only model of course.
I just like the smooth HDD sound 😁

Edit:
Reliability... Next to none. But I don't store critical data on these machines any way 😉

my drive is also connected but it makes a strange creak when it searches for files, I don't know if it's a characteristic noise or not. Also for this reason I thought he was near the end of his life and therefore I wanted to avoid stressing him too much. Furthermore, it seems to me to be 20Mb, which is really too little, even for a 286.

I wanted to use xt-ide also because there is no room for another hard disk of any kind and the card integrates the compact flash, which is also very convenient for saving space.

luckybob wrote on 2023-10-13, 21:57:

#1 There is also a special SD card adapter in the works for just this machine. (and the model 25). it replaces the hard drive directly. I havent heard anything about it in a while.

#2 Those drives are hot garbage. They will fail because its Tuesday. If it currently works, I say use it. Might as well get some enjoyment out of it.

Any link one #1 ? I thought ibmmuseum mentioned it once, but I can't find it again at the moment.

sure!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9cQ6WJdCyg

more info about the drives ehre:
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/ibm … lacement.74076/

luckybob wrote on 2023-10-14, 19:29:

sure! […]
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sure!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9cQ6WJdCyg

more info about the drives ehre:
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/ibm … lacement.74076/

Cheers ! Now if only I could remember what I was looking up to stumble on that one. sigh 😀

I simply installed an XT-IDE that I had, inserted a microdrive with DOS 6.22 installed and it seems to work, do you see something wrong in the writing? I have no experience with the XT-IDE

1) When starting up the computer still asks me to press F1, as if it didn't see the disk, after I pressed F1 it starts up with the screen you see in the photo... it seems strange to me.

2) I had a 1Gb Microdrive available and I used that, do you think 1Gb is wasted? I used it to maintain the IBM brand, a fixation of mine.... Otherwise I also have a 128Mb and a 512Mb CF available

I think a 1GB drive be fine since DOS can handle to 2GB partition, may never fill it up though 😀
Did you re-run the IBM Setup disk ? just curious....

Horun wrote on 2023-10-15, 18:32:

I think a 1GB drive be fine since DOS can handle to 2GB partition, may never fill it up though 😀
Did you re-run the IBM Setup disk ? just curious....

no i have not run the ibm setup disk, how can help me? tnks

I am not familiar with the exact setup disk for a model 30 286, but think you need to remove the ESDI drive from cmos or else the bios may think it is still connected....causing the F1 pop-up.

Horun wrote on 2023-10-15, 19:23:

I am not familiar with the exact setup disk for a model 30 286, but think you need to remove the ESDI drive from cmos or else the bios may think it is still connected....causing the F1 pop-up.

ok i try, tnks for now