I probably wouldnt use the term "modern" to describe the 7.5Gb U-Series that is currently in it (first working drive I pulled off the shelf that didnt have things I'd be sad about formatting over), but alas yes, it is IDE nonetheless.
But yes, I'm definitely with ya there Byrd... very handy machine to have too by virtue of being a tower with lots of drive bays, a great, easily workable case, an onboard SCSI controller still but also two IDE channels, and being that I decided to build the Rev.2 machine for this project, it also supports slaving on the IDE buses (unlike the Rev. 1 which is donating it's board to the DT this evening which really cant make use of slave drives anyway due to case restrictions). In adition, it supports OS8 through OSX up to a point... My only regret is that I didnt buy a couple of minitowers back when they were phenomenally cheap, unwanted and readily available. I guess they are still cheap nowadays assuming you can get one, but very uncommon to find being sold anymore in any condition. This was definitely worth the gamble... Even if I was fully prepared to simply have a pair of paperweights just for the sake of a drive bay bezel, a drive sled, and a couple of RF plates.
As of now it is back together properly and running a brand new install of 8.6... only issue I seem to be having is getting it to play nice with the G5 and 9600... the 9600 and G3 cant see each other in Chooser, and when I try to connect to the G5 via a direct IP address, it recognises the machine there, but will not display any volumes to which I can connect. Puzzling, but probably easily fixable.