The Amiga 500 Series II A500-HD8+ is an external hard drive unit designed specifically for the Commodore Amiga 500. Manufactured by GVP (Great Valley Products), the A500-HD8+ is a SCSI controller that connects to the side expansion slot of the Amiga and allows users to install a 3.5" hard disk.

The HD8+ has 4 x 30-pin SIMM sockets that can utilize 1Mx8 or 4Mx8 SIMM memory modules.

Specifications:

• Combination eight (8) megabyte, zero-waitstate, FastRAM controller and ANSI XT3T9.2 compatible SCSI interface.
• High performance DMA transfers to and from hard-disk.
• SCSI data transfer rates of up to 3.58MB/sec.
• Auto-configs both Fast RAM and SCSI interface.
• Internal 50-pin SCSI connector.
• External 25-pin SCSI connector (DB25).

Our unit is complete with the original box and power supply unit, and was kindly donated by Shane McDonnell.

Versions of the A500-HD8+ may exist which use the special 32pin GVP SIMM32 SIMMs instead of the standard 30pin SIMMS, but this has not been confirmed. Keith Emer provides the following information:

A GVP A500 HD+ with a 'very rare' 32 pin memory fitted (rather than the more common 30 pin, as generally described on your website) exists. This is fitted with 4x1mb simms (populating all 4 simm sockets) and the scis hd is the original 121mb. I have yet to come across and 32 pins simms larger than the 1mb type, already fitted.