This little guy has been on my wish list for a while now. They're pretty hard to find. I've only seen a handful on eBay over the past year and they've all gone for well over $100 bucks. I snagged this 1Gig model for a mere $24.
It's in great shape. There's not so much as a mark on it. It does have some yellowing on the front and top. I’ve seen worse. It should clean up nicely with a quick retr0brite session.
It’s pretty neat how they hid the SCSI ID select switch under a little “hood”. It’s usually hidden on the back of most SCSI devices, and is a real pain to get to. Especially if you’re using something like an 80SC that sits under your Mac. If you have multiple devices fighting for the same SCSI ID, you might find yourself having to juggle IDs here and there. Some drives, like Zip drives, can only be set to 5 or 6, so it’s pretty handy to be able to quickly change the ID on the M2115 as needed.
It’s pretty strange how most of the yellowing is concentrated on the front, and then slowly fades along the top. The sides, back, and bottom are fine. It probably spent the last decade or so up high on a shelf somewhere sandwiched between two other devices. The light hitting it probably just reached the front and snuck over the top.
Restoring it should be a snap.
It still has all 4 feet. That’s always a plus.
There’s no copyright date on the label, but the serial number starts with “D7”. That’s April, 1997.
All 4 clips are intact and the ports are clean and free of damage.
Let’s pop it open and check out the drive. It opens pretty easily. Remove these two screws:
Once the screws are out, slide a screwdriver in the two slots on the edge opposite the side with the screws and push the two halves apart.
The side panel will slide right out.
And there it is. There’s really not much too it. It’s mostly drive and power supply.
It’s the original Quantum 1080MB drive with matching serial number. Cool.
Rumor has it that Apple didn’t even manufacture this drive. The consensus is that it was made for Apple by LaCie. Opening it up reveals that the power supply was made by LITEON. I’ve purchased LITEON drives in the past, mainly optical, and they’ve all been OEM drives. I wonder if it was actually made by LITEON. It seems strange that LaCie would have used their competitor’s power supply. Then again, it was 1997. Microsoft gave Apple $150 million dollars.
While I had the case open, I connected it to my Color Classic and started them up.
The drive mounted with no struggle at all. The small fan keeps it nice and quiet, unlike my 80SC.
Nice how the icon matches the drive.
Surprisingly the drive was actually wiped clean. This is probably the first time I’ve ever received a 2nd-hand drive to find that the previous owner actually wiped it. Ever single one of my Macs that I’ve purchased off eBay has arrived with a drive full of data.
Considering the Color Classic is 4 years older than the M2115, it matches it perfectly. The recess in the enclosure for the power LED is an exact match. The grill on the top too is a close match to the sides of the Color Classic. Considering it’s from 1997, it doesn’t come close to the design language used on any of the Macs that Apple sold in 1997.
I can’t wait to dip it. It’s going to look brand new!
