A PB180 with a CF card in place of the SCSI harddisk drive is a decent thing to play with, using the Artmix CF-SCSI adaptor. The performance is excellent (reads at top speed and writes pretty fast, compared to a huge 500 MB 2.5" SCSI harddisk drive) and it is quiet.
For a low budget you may remove the internal drive and use any external SCSI drive to keep the PB180 operational. If you can snatch an old SCSI laptop drive for nothing, get it. I would not spend much for an old drive (15+ years minimum, unknown history and storage condition), as the money might better be saved for reliable gear.
For a low budget you may remove the internal drive and use any external SCSI drive to keep the PB180 operational. If you can snatch an old SCSI laptop drive for nothing, get it. I would not spend much for an old drive (15+ years minimum, unknown history and storage condition), as the money might better be saved for reliable gear.