[comp.sys.ibm.pc] double disk capacity, Perstor ADRT controller any good?

clee@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Chang L. Lee) (04/17/91)

I've come across a seemingly inexpensive way of increasing harddisk
capacity.  The Perstor PS180-16FN is a 16 bit controller advertised
as being able to almost double the capacity of MFM drives (e.g. ST251
from 40MB to approximately 72MB.)  This is done with a proprietory
data encoding scheme.

The dealer quoted me $200 for the card.  Has anyone experience with 
this product, or can point me to reviews?


Thanks

James Chang <ACPS7028@Ryerson.CA> (04/18/91)

Have you looked at the other Data Compression boards on the market??  I believe
 there's a few others on the market, ex. Stacker, although I have never used
it before, Stacker is suppose to have IDE support.  You may purchase Stacker
software alone, or in combination with the Stacker Co-Processor board.  The
best thing to do is pop into your local comp. store and get specs on them.

jayh@ms.uky.edu (Jay Hofacker) (04/20/91)

clee@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Chang L. Lee) writes:

>I've come across a seemingly inexpensive way of increasing harddisk
>capacity.  The Perstor PS180-16FN is a 16 bit controller advertised
>as being able to almost double the capacity of MFM drives (e.g. ST251
>from 40MB to approximately 72MB.)  This is done with a proprietory
>data encoding scheme.

>The dealer quoted me $200 for the card.  Has anyone experience with 
>this product, or can point me to reviews?

I just bought and installed a used 16bit Perstor card on my BBS machine.  It
seems to work fine, though slightly slower than the 1:1 RLL controller I was
using.  I had a little trouble getting it installed, but a call to their
tech support cleared everything up.
   From talking to others who have tried the Perstor card, I've found that it
is picky about what kind of system it will run with.  If you can get it
working, it runs beautifully and reliably, but it is not compatible with all
systems and drives.
-- 
Jay Hofacker, sysop of the Audio/Visual Exchange, (606)254-1751 3/12/24 MNP 5
Mail: jayh@ms.uky.edu / uk02779@ukpr.uky.edu -- Yes, my signature is only 2 lin