Best storage option for an STE?

[VMSZealot]

I'm the proud owner of a (new to me) Atari STE, but I don't really know how hard disk options work for it. I see talk about the need to have drivers - does this mean than an ST won't boot from a hard drive unless it gets bootstrapped from a floppy (to load the drivers) before it can start from the hard drive solution? Presumably I'll get the best support if I upgrade to TOS 2.x - but does that introduce any other compatibility problems that I should care about?

Then again, I see talk about SDforST, ACSI2STM and UltraSatan. Which of these is the best (and easiest for a noob) solution for an Atari STE? All help gratefully received. And easiest is more important than most performant or featureful for me!

[rubber_jonnie]

I'm the proud owner of a (new to me) Atari STE, but I don't really know how hard disk options work for it. I see talk about the need to have drivers - does this mean than an ST won't boot from a hard drive unless it gets bootstrapped from a floppy (to load the drivers) before it can start from the hard drive solution? Presumably I'll get the best support if I upgrade to TOS 2.x - but does that introduce any other compatibility problems that I should care about?

Then again, I see talk about SDforST, ACSI2STM and UltraSatan. Which of these is the best (and easiest for a noob) solution for an Atari STE? All help gratefully received. And easiest is more important than most performant or featureful for me!

Depends on budget. My preference is for Ultrasatan, but the other options are generally cheaper.

As for bootstrapping from a floppy that's generally not necessary, you partition the drive, install the drivers and they will load at boot time. Personally I only recommend 2 drivers, HDDRIVER and PPera's driver.

HDDRIVER is more expensive, but does support a wide range of devices. It'll work with ACSI, SCSI and IDE in my experience. PPera's driver is a lot cheaper and the last time I bought it it was specific to IDE and wouldn't work on anything else. BUT it is a lot cheaper.

Both drivers do also support the use of SD cards on both TOS and Windows which is super handy as it means you can use the SD card to easily transfer files from Windows to TOS.

Either SDforST or ACSI2STM I think also allows for GEMDOS devices, which is a slightly easier way of doing it.

[Steve]

I personally recommend: https://www.16-32bit.eu/acsi2stm

As it supports something called Gemdrive (as mentioned by @rubber_jonnie but I just wanted to sing it's praises a bit more) where you can have full compatibility with a Windows computer on one of the sd cards. You set up one sd card as the Atari standard bootable drive, then you set up a separate sd card in Gemdos mode (I think just fat32?) which you can simply copy and paste files on to, then have access on the Atari... probably the most 'noob friendly' way to transfer files.

If you don't need to boot off your hard disk, then Gemdrive will work without any hard disk driver at all (I don't think it's bootable) You can simply load it up with all your files, games and applications. You only need to go down the 'hard disk driver route' if you want to boot of C:\. You could simply have a floppy in A:\ with your AUTO prg's and CPX's. You'll avoid all the extra stress of having to source a hard disk driver, then learning how to partition.

But yes you are entering the rather confusing world of Atari hard disk drivers, quirks and personalities... so good luck!

[exxos]

The BBAN drive never seems to get mentioned..

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0259

[alexh]

The BBAN drive never seems to get mentioned..
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0259

I have one of these. It works very well. Even on the 1st version of FW with my 520 ST with only TOS1.0

My preference these days for ST storage is the ACSI2STM, great value at only £22

https://store.sidecartridge.com/product ... -st-series

But if you're really looking for ultimate flexibility and power, the SideCartridge MultiDevice at £39 is incredible

https://store.sidecartridge.com/product ... lti-device

As well as being a ROM cartridge emulator and an RTC emulator it can also pretend to be a GEMDRIVE, you can transfer files to the GemDrive over WIFI from your PC (no more fumbling to eject uSD cards and finding USB card readers etc). It can pretend to be the floppy disk drive, and can download disk images automagically over the internet based on an integrated online database of available disk images.

[exxos]

I have one of these. It works very well. Even on the 1st version of FW with my 520 ST with only TOS1.0
My preference these days for ST storage is the ACSI2STM, great value at only £22

Wasn't aware of that specifically, but I know a lot of people have done clones of the same project. The current market is a bit saturated with drives lately. We worked out the price for the BBAN at the time, most drives at the time were £60+ and didn't include the driver. We did the BBAN to be reliable and "work out of the box". Though I can't even make the BBAN for that amount.

[Steve]

Yeah I understand but this is about advice that's best for the OP, he's completely new to Atari. Any solution that provides a driver-less solution, ie; Gemdrive, is going to be better for him to begin with. Anything else sends him down the driver rabbit-hole, which would be another threads-worth of questions and answers he'll need to go down in order to learn everything... So it's not necessarily about cost, although cost is always a factor.

[exxos]

driver-less solution, ie; Gemdrive,

Didn't even know such things were even possible. I've always gone with the notion that drivers were always needed.. Seems I've missed something somewhere then..

[alexh]

I don't remember installing drivers on my BBAN. Did they (ICD Pro?) come on the bundled uSD card? It worked out of the box with very early FW and my 520 ST shorty which only has TOS 1.0 and I was very impressed.

[exxos]

I don't remember installing drivers on my BBAN. Did they (ICD Pro?) come on the bundled uSD card? It worked out of the box with very early FW and my 520 ST shorty which only has TOS 1.0 and I was very impressed.

They come with SD card and with ICD setup. So its "plug and play". Though for PC compatibility it needs HDdriver and to be reformatted to be compatible between ST and PC.

ICD doesn't work very well or at all with a 030 CPU. So HDdriver is really the better option to go for..