TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.ARPA (12/29/87)
Does anyone know of a better summary of hard drives available for a GS than was in the November A+? Although fairly thorough, that article did not contain any technical specs on average access time and transfer rate, and I gather various drives do come in various speeds. I am more interested in speed and price than capacity; the last dealer I talked to didn't even have any technical specs on the drives he was selling (Everett, which looked pretty good in a test drive, but which are new to the Apple II market; $700 for 20meg doesn't sound bad.) TMPLee@dockmaster.arpa
nfong@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Fong) (02/23/88)
I disagree that the data xfer rates of a IIgs SCSI card are higher than that of any Mac except the Mac2. Probably the transfer rates of any mac are >2X faster than the II. The scsi card can handle a 3:1 interleave barely.. (Due to on board ram to buffer things) The company I work for builds fast drives on the Mac, sustainable transfer rates of 1.4 MBytes per second on a Mac2. I think people to watch the access times because date throughput is so slow on the II. On the other hand, Prodos's file/directory management is so disk intensive, a faster access time may help. One thing nice about Apple's SCSI drives is that you need not use a foreign formatter to format the disks. 3rd party scsi drives need custom formatters, which no doubt will need maintenance with future ROM/OS updates. nfong@ucbcory.Berkeley.Edu
ralphw@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) (02/25/88)
In article <939@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> nfong@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Fong) writes: >help. One thing nice about Apple's SCSI drives is that you need not >use a foreign formatter to format the disks. 3rd party scsi drives need >custom formatters, which no doubt will need maintenance with future >ROM/OS updates. If this is true, I'd appreciate answers to ANY the following questions: - Why is this? I though SCSI had a 'format' command. All you need to tell a Sun (using the 'diag' utility) is the adapter board type, the drive geometry (cylinders,heads,sectors/track, interleave) and it formats just fine. - What components does Apple use in their drives? - How can Apple sell a SCSI card for the II without bundling it with a drive? - Is the Apple II formatter more 'generic' than the Mac version? - Does the Apple II SCSI board use the protocol converter conventions? - What will I need to do if I hook up the following? Rodime 204E(ST-506)<->Adaptec ACB 4000<->SCSI bus<->Apple Micropolis 1355(ESDI)<->Emulex MD21<->SCSI bus<->Apple -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412)268-{2847,3275} CMU-{BUGS,DARK} Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (02/25/88)
nfong@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Fong) writes: > 3rd party scsi drives need custom formatters I don't know about that. I recently bought a Mac-Plus w/ Rodime-20 drive and Radius accelerator board (and Full Page Display). Radius tech support warned me that there was something strange about the way Rodime formats their disks which makes them unusable with the accelerator (some timing snafu having to do with interleave; I confess I didn't quite understand the problem) and they suggested that I reformat the disk with Apple's standard SCSI formatter. I did so, and have been running fine for the past month or so. So, there is at least one example of a thrid party disk which does not need a custom formatter. Disproof by counterexample. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.ARPA (02/27/88)
I recently installed an Everex 40Meg drive on my GS; it is mostly sold to the Macintosh market but has a SCSI interface so it plugs right into an Apple SCSI card. In a sense it had to be formatted by "foreign software" -- if it's formatted by any of the ProDOS utilities I have (System Utilities, Finder, Copy II+, possibly something else) you can only use a small part of it -- 8 Meg, I seem to remember (40-32 is the clue). So what you do is have it be formatted on a Macintosh (gets you 32Meg) at the dealer and very carefully carry it home. Everex has promised the dealer the right kind of software (i.e., under ProDos) that will format the whole thing (into two 20M volumes) provide backup etc. (Its been a month or so, so its time to bug them again...) p.s., it works fine, no errors, is quiet, and is fast.
fjo@ttrdf.UUCP (Frank Owen ) (03/04/88)
>> 3rd party scsi drives need custom formatters > > So, there is at least one example of a thrid party disk which does > not need a custom formatter. Disproof by counterexample. Another counter-example: Take a standard off-the-shelf Seagate ST225N disk drive. Wire up an appropriatte SCSI connector to connect to Apples weird DB-25 connector. Apples Standard formatter can then be used to initialize this drive. Only one possible problem: If you want to connect to the non-platinum Mac-pluses, you will have to disable the UNIT ATTENTION feature of the ST225N. This is easily done by sending a "magic" SCSI command to the drive. (see the seagate manual for details) -- Frank Owen (fjo@ttrde) 312-982-2182 AT&T Information Systems Computer Systems Division, 5555 Touhy Ave., Skokie, IL 60077 PATH: ...!ihnp4!ttrde!fjo
rs.miller@pro-newfrontier.UUCP (Randy Miller) (02/06/89)
Larry Moss at uhura.cc.rochester.edu writes whether the Apple ProFile drives could be used with a Franklin 1000, seeing that it was originally used with the Apple III and LISA. Larry, as long as you have the Apple II ProFile interface card, You CAN use the ProFile with the Franklin, PROVIDED you have a patched copy of ProDOS that gets around the machine checking ProDOS does to see whether it is running on an honest-to-pete- Apple II. I have run ProFiles from my office on the Laser 128 with the expansion box with no problems. As for the Corvus drive, if you really want to get it to work, you would need to get a "mini-network" going to get it to run. First, does the drive have a network controller box? In order to run ProDOS on the drive, you will need the newer ROMS for the transporter card. If you have the network controller box and the new ROMS on the Transporter, you will need Corvus' OCS I or OCS II cabling. I recommend the OCS II cabling system, since it is nearly idiotproof to screw up. (I used to work technical support, and have dealt with Corvus networking problems). Finally, to get the drive running, ESPCIALLY under ProDOS, you will need either Constellation II or Constellation III networking software to generate a ProDOS volume. Remember, the Corvus Drives are based on UCSD p-system, and installation of the firmware, ESPECIALLY with Constellation II is not for the faint of heart. I personally recommend Constellation III, since it is on the order of a magnitude easier to install. Drop me mail if you need further assistance Randy Miller rs.miller@pro-newfrontier
emerrill@pro-carolina.UUCP (Eric Merrill) (06/02/89)
I have a IIgs and am looking for a good harddrive that won't bankrupt me. I'd like at least 40 megs, but prefer closer to 60 or 80. No, I don't really want to make my own "plain vanilla" drive, either. I've seen retail lists of drives for Macs (Oops--sorry about that mention!) from 3rd parties for 60 and 80 megs under $1K. Any good suggestions? What kind of drives do you have, how much $$, and are you happy with them? ___________________________________________________________________________ | | | Eric Merrill INET: emerrill@pro-carolina.cts.com SPACE FOR RENT!! | | Alink PE: Doc Neuro GEnie: e.merrill CHEAP!! | | ARPA: crash!pro-carolina!emerrill@nosc.mil $49.95/MO | | UUCP: [ sdcsvax nosc ] !crash!pro-carolina!emerrill or best offer | |___________________________________________________________________________|
JDA@NIHCU.BITNET (Doug Ashbrook) (06/03/89)
> I have a IIgs and am looking for a good harddrive that won't bankrupt me. > I'd like at least 40 megs, but prefer closer to 60 or 80. No, I don't really > want to make my own "plain vanilla" drive, either. I've seen retail lists of > drives for Macs (Oops--sorry about that mention!) from 3rd parties for 60 and > 80 megs under $1K. Any good suggestions? What kind of drives do you have, > how > much $$, and are you happy with them? I have a 40 meg Chinook for which I paid $860. One of the main reasons that I bought this drive was that it comes with an Apple SCSI card. I have been very happy with the drive. -------------------------------------------------------------------- J. Douglas Ashbrook (301) 496-5181 BITNET: JDA@NIHCU <-- preferred address INTERNET: JDA@CU.NIH.GOV or jda%nihcu.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu National Institutes of Health, Computer Center, Bethesda, MD 20892 -+- Remember. If some weirdo in a blue suit offers you some MS-DOS, JUST SAY NO!
yk4@CUNIXB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Yong Su Kim) (10/21/89)
Well, you could build your own hard drive by assembling the components of a hard drive. I did this and it cost me under $700 for a 60Meg SCSI drive with an Apple SCSI card. Just pick up some computer magazine and you can see ads for seagate drives. As long as they are SCSI and you have a SCSI card, they will work. You can then buy a power supply and a case to house the drive and then you have a hard drive which is cheaper than commercial products. _____________________________________________________________________________ |Internet: yk4@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu |||||||The Korean from Hong Kong.|||||| |Bitnet : yk4@cunixc ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |UUCP : rutgers!columbia!cunixc!yk4 ||||||||||...Apple IIGS user...|||||||| |_______________________________________|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
gt0t+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Gregory Ross Thompson) (10/22/89)
Got a question for all you guys. My CMC hard drive has the following components: Drive mechanism: Nidec (Nippon Densen Corp 05FAPX4404) Conroller Card: Konan Corporation P-DJ2-301-B Ok, that's all I could read off the drive and the controller. If anyone out there has any clues as to what type of drive it is (SCSI, SASY, RLL, etc...), or what the interface converts to, etc... The problem with the drive is that it does not work with GS/OS (any version) because of what I thought was the drivers, but now I'm thinking othewise. When I made GS/OS the startup program on my drive, as soon as it loaded the ProDOS file, or start.gsos, or something, it crashed into monitor. I don't know if it's because of the drive's interrupts killing gsos or what. Does ANYONE have ANY ideas? It's a CMC 'Quick-20' drive if that makes any difference.... -Greg T. ======================================================================== * I want my hard drive to work, #ARPANet : gt0t+@andrew.cmu.edu ^ * but I can't afford a new one. #Bitnet:Floyd@Drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu^ * Won't someone help me??? Money #Bitnet : y614gt0t@VB.CC.CMU.EDU ^ * would be appreciated...:-) #Can I get one more account??? ^ ========================================================================