jabernathy@pro-houston.cts.com (Joe Abernathy) (11/11/89)
In-Reply-To: message from cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!krb20699@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
> Any opinion on hard drives would be appreciated.
Buy an external. If you buy a good one, it will be nearly as fast as any
Vulcan. If you run it with a Multi-Kache Card, it will be faster than any
Vulcan. And if you are disappointed in the future with Apple's level of
support, or simply feel that you need to explore another computer
architecture, your hard drive investment will not be lost.
.. As a note: If you do know that you will be sticking with your Apple II, and
if you don't anticipate a need to use your hard drive in a networked
situation, there has never been a better personal, one-computer hard drive
than the Vulcan.
UUCP: crash!pro-houston!jabernathy
ARPA: crash!pro-houston!jabernathy@nosc.mil
INET: jabernathy@pro-houston.cts.comemerrill@tippy.uucp (11/12/89)
/* Written 3:36 pm Nov 3, 1989 by krb20699@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu in tippy:apple */ > Ok, I need some advice (bear with me.) I've got a GS, if it helps: > I'm planning on getting a hard drive, and I'm pretty set on an AE Vulcan >40meg at about $619+S&H mail-order. What I need to know is if going SCSI, >even though you abondon the internal idea, would be faster or better in >another way. I have a Vulcan 40 meg that I've had for a month now. I ordered it the second week in August from Quality Computers for $605 + $20 S&H (I think...). I also placed inquiries at other places, asking them to call when the 40 meg was in stock--Quality Computers was the first one to call, but the others (Preferred Computers and Roger Coats) called within a week after hearing from Quality Computers. Overall, I wasn't impressed with QC--the first time I called, they told me that they had received shipments of the 40 meg for the IIgs and should get enough to fill the backorders plus more within the week (3rd week of August). When I called two weeks later to inquire about the progress, I was informed that they had never even received _ANY_ shipments of the 40 meg--just the 100 and the 20 meg units. Also, depending upon the time of day I called, I was quoted different prices. In a span of two days, I called three times, with prices ranging from $605 to $620. I don't think this shows much professionalism. >Does anyone know if AE's putting System 5.0.2 on their Vulcans? Also, >is anyone familiar with the advertised (I believe) optional cacheing feature >for Vulcans? One last question (sorry :-) does AE send their hard disks >optimized? What I mean is, should I use low level formatting when I get >the thing to optimize it to my machine, and replant Sys 5.0.? back onto it? Yes, currently the Vulcans for the IIgs ship with 5.0.2. From what I understand from the AE reps on GEnie, the optional caching feature is still vaporware. They have prototypes, but it will be a few months before it becomes a real product. The 100 meg already comes with some kind of internal caching. I believe the interleave is the optimum for the "standard" setup (i.e. w/o Transwarp). I ran DiskTimer on my disk and got better results than the times listed for other drives, so I decided not to mess with low level formatting. The drive comes with a Vulcan CDA (IIgs) that lets you park the heads, select the boot partition, and write protect partitions. I'm satisfied with my Vulcan, but I wish I had the $$ to go with the 100 meg... :-) >InterNet: krb20699@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu | Ken Brownfield _________________________________________________________ | | | Eric Merrill tippy!emerrill@newton.physics.purdue.edu | | | | My other witty .sig is in the shop being repaired. | |_________________________________________________________|