Backing up ancient hard-drive from SGI Workstation

IzzyHope58 · May 24

I got an old SGI Indigo 2 system off ebay, and I want to backup the data from the drive in came with. I have 3 questions about that.

1. What is the best way to backup the data. I've heard of Clonezilla. But I have no idea what file system the drive might be and if it would be supported in clonezilla, or if the file system dosn't matter and it can just do a complete drive clone. There also might just be better tools for cloning drives to an image that I'm not aware of. Most of the tutorials for Clonezilla I have found are things like "clone your windows 10 drive" and I've been unsure if it works or is the best option in a niche case like this.

2. How do I connect the drive to a modern system. The drive itself is 50pin IDE, so I couldn't use my IDE to USB adapter, or my old motherboard that has IDE (both of which are only 40 pin). However the drive connects to an adapter that a believe is a SCSI port which is how the drive connects to the actual system. I know very little about this port and if there's reliable adapters for either 50 pin IDE or the SCSI port that are out there.

3. When I finally backup the data I might want to try using a modern drive or SSD. So I guess same question but reverse, can a modern sata drive be adapted to the 50 pin or SCSI port.

Attached are photos of the drive itself, and the adapter plate the drive sits in when connected to the system.

Thanks for the help! Izzy : )

Blue4130 · May 24

1 hour ago, IzzyHope58 said:

I got an old SGI Indigo 2 system off ebay, and I want to backup the data from the drive in came with. I have 3 questions about that.

1. What is the best way to backup the data. I've heard of Clonezilla. But I have no idea what file system the drive might be and if it would be supported in clonezilla, or if the file system dosn't matter and it can just do a complete drive clone. There also might just be better tools for cloning drives to an image that I'm not aware of. Most of the tutorials for Clonezilla I have found are things like "clone your windows 10 drive" and I've been unsure if it works or is the best option in a niche case like this.

2. How do I connect the drive to a modern system. The drive itself is 50pin IDE, so I couldn't use my IDE to USB adapter, or my old motherboard that has IDE (both of which are only 40 pin). However the drive connects to an adapter that a believe is a SCSI port which is how the drive connects to the actual system. I know very little about this port and if there's reliable adapters for either 50 pin IDE or the SCSI port that are out there.

3. When I finally backup the data I might want to try using a modern drive or SSD. So I guess same question but reverse, can a modern sata drive be adapted to the 50 pin or SCSI port.

Attached are photos of the drive itself, and the adapter plate the drive sits in when connected to the system.

Thanks for the help! Izzy : )

That 50 pin is scsi not IDE. So you will need a scsi interface card. As for backing up, the file system shouldn't matter if you do a low level clone. It will take a block by block copy of the drive regardless of how the data is formated.

jmwhite33 · May 24

12 hours ago, IzzyHope58 said:

I got an old SGI Indigo 2 system off ebay, and I want to backup the data from the drive in came with. I have 3 questions about that.

1. What is the best way to backup the data. I've heard of Clonezilla. But I have no idea what file system the drive might be and if it would be supported in clonezilla, or if the file system dosn't matter and it can just do a complete drive clone. There also might just be better tools for cloning drives to an image that I'm not aware of. Most of the tutorials for Clonezilla I have found are things like "clone your windows 10 drive" and I've been unsure if it works or is the best option in a niche case like this.

I've been using Disk Genius.

I was able to image and access data on a drive in RAW format in win 10, then write that image to different drive with no problems.

It is a very versatile disk management utility, free download and can be used to create a bootable usb version, (that has saved my butt twice so far).