jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) (11/04/88)
Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, a WD controller? Thanks, Jeff -- Jeff Holmes DOMAIN: jeff@questar.mn.org Questar Data Systems UUCP: amdahl!bungia!questar!jeff
pervect@bsu-cs.UUCP (Barrett Kreiner) (11/05/88)
In article <1717@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>, jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) writes: > > Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on > the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, > a WD controller? > > Thanks, > Jeff > -- > Jeff Holmes DOMAIN: jeff@questar.mn.org > Questar Data Systems UUCP: amdahl!bungia!questar!jeff My ST-225s have been through hell, and keep on ticking. They have been bounced, hit, and take many several hundred mile road trips without cushions. I damaged my first one when I accidentally typed in 'prep', and being it was late at night, finished the command and it started. I turned it off in process and it burned a track right off the disk. I then proceded to spin and flip my car over an embankment and total most of the car (we walked away), but the monitor bought it. The computer was at an impact point and had glass, apple cider and ginger ale dumped in it. We transplanted the disk/controller to another machine and found NO errors save for the burned track. Any device that can take THAT punishment has got my vote :-] |---------------------------------------------------------------------|-----| | Barrett Kreiner UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!pervect | :-] | | Technical Manager, Fine Arts Computer Lab|--------------------------|-----| | Ball State University. Muncie, Indiana |This space left blank on purpose| |------------------------------------------|--------------------------------| | How am I computing? Let my parents know at ddsw1!kreiner (HI ma & dad) | | Disclamer: "I don't know them! I'm a student, nobody listens to ME!" | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
jpd@usl-pc.usl.edu (DugalJP) (11/08/88)
In article <1717@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>, jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) writes: > > Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on > the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, > a WD controller? > > Thanks, > Jeff We received ST225 drives in four Zenith 158's we ordered two years ago. All four drives make a bothersome continual noise and vibrate so much that I can't use them on a desktop! While noise seems to be a common complaint, the vibration was/is intolerable. Good luck! -- James -- -- James Dugal, N5KNX USENET: ...!{dalsqnt,killer}!usl!jpd Associate Director Internet: jpd@usl.edu Computing Center US Mail: PO Box 42770 Lafayette, LA 70504 University of Southwestern LA. Tel. 318-231-6417 U.S.A.
dsd@hpsad.HP.COM (Donald StDenis) (11/09/88)
>/ hpsad:comp.sys.ibm.pc / jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) / 6:50 am Nov 4, 1988 / > > Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on > the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, > a WD controller? I've got an ST225 with an OMPTI (sp) controller, no problems in 2 years, I use it about 4-10 hrs/week. -- Donald St. Denis R&D Department HP-UX Email address: dsd@hpsad Hewlett-Packard Signal Analysis Division Telephone: US (707) 794 4489 Rohnert Park, CA 94928
kep@ablnc.ATT.COM (Karl Parks) (11/11/88)
In article <90@usl-pc.usl.edu>, jpd@usl-pc.usl.edu (DugalJP) writes: > In article <1717@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>, jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) writes: > > > > Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on > > the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, > > a WD controller? > > We received ST225 drives in four Zenith 158's we ordered two years ago. ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ It seems that ST225's had some serious porblems several years ago. I remember reading the net and got the impression that their failure rate was rather high. Lately it seems that there are annoying problems, but that they are working for a longer period of time. Is this perception right? Does anyone have info on the mean failure rates of the more popular hard drives? Karl Parks att!ablnc!kep
kevinc@auvax.UUCP (Kevin "auric" Crocker) (11/15/88)
In article <616@ablnc.ATT.COM>, kep@ablnc.ATT.COM (Karl Parks) writes: > It seems that ST225's had some serious porblems several years ago. I > remember reading the net and got the impression that their failure rate was > rather high. Lately it seems that there are annoying problems, but that they > are working for a longer period of time. Well, I had a 225 put into an old Zenith 241 in July and was I ever against it. I really gave our hardware people a rough time as I had heard so nuch bad PR about this drive. So far this thing has the following very annoying habits: it sounds like a spluttering race car on boot - an event that takes about 90 seconds - totally intollerable This is just to find the boot record and load the boot sequence. Then it chugs through my config.sys and autoexec.bat like a dinosaur. it is very loud and makes all sorts of strange noises when a disk write occurs it makes a death rattle somewhat akin to the death throws of a typewriter thrown off a 20 story building as it hits pavement. when a disk read occurs sometimes it doesn't without about ten tries and it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard Hey, the only time I like this thing is when I'm reading USENET and am hooked up to the VAX and the disk doesn't have to do anything. I am not impressed - notice no smiley!!! kevin
grig8348@fredonia.UUCP (LoyEllen Griggs) (11/15/88)
In article <616@ablnc.ATT.COM> kep@ablnc.ATT.COM (Karl Parks) writes: ;In article <90@usl-pc.usl.edu>, jpd@usl-pc.usl.edu (DugalJP) writes: ;> In article <1717@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>, jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) writes: ;> > Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on ;> > the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, ;> > a WD controller? ;> We received ST225 drives in four Zenith 158's we ordered two years ago. ; ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ;It seems that ST225's had some serious porblems several years ago. I ;remember reading the net and got the impression that their failure rate was ;rather high..... ;Is this perception right? Maybe I'm the odd man out, but I've had _two_ ST225's running one on top of the other in an XT compatible for two and a half years now with nary a sign of a problem. It should be mentioned that this computer travels 60 mi. at least once a month and usually three to four times a month in the back seat of a chevette. Anyway, with two fans to keep them cool, they've worked fine. The other four drives that have come and gone (Tulin, Western and something I can't remember) are different stories. Have people really had massive problems with ST225's? -- '. .` LoyEllen _ SUNY @ Fredonia fredonia!grig8348@cs.buffalo.edu if all else fails: {decvax,watmath,rutgers}!sunybcs!fredonia!grig8348
zgel05@apctrc.UUCP (George E. Lehmann) (11/15/88)
In article <764@auvax.UUCP> kevinc@auvax.UUCP (Kevin "auric" Crocker) writes: >In article <616@ablnc.ATT.COM>, kep@ablnc.ATT.COM (Karl Parks) writes: >> It seems that ST225's had some serious porblems several years ago. I >> remember reading the net and got the impression that their failure rate was >> rather high. Lately it seems that there are annoying problems, but that they >> are working for a longer period of time. >Well, I had a 225 put into an old Zenith 241 in July and was I ever >against it. > ... numerous ST-225 complaints ... Just to put in my two cents (actually about $450) worth... I purchased an ST-225 in December 86 (paying $450 then for the drive and a controller card), plugged it in, loaded it up, and have been running like a champ ever since. (Knock on large piece of wood here.) It went into a 4.77Mhz clone machine, and has gone through at least a thousand power cycles and thousands of hours of operation. No strange noises, no apparent problems whatever. I think the reason I've had such good luck is that I do frequent backups. Murphy's Law 2.3.6.7, Corollary 6, Paragraph 3.a, Subsection 1: The probability of failure of a given disk drive is proportional to the cube of the time since the last backup was made. -- George Lehmann, ...!uunet!apctrc!zgel05 Amoco Production Co., PO BOX 3385, Tulsa, Ok 74102 ph:918-660-4066 Standard Disclaimer: Contents are my responsibility, not AMOCO's.
bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (11/17/88)
In article <1717@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>, jeff@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes) writes: > > Can any kind soul out there give me their thoughts on > the 'Seagate ST-225 20mb (65 ms)' hard drive with, I think, > a WD controller? > Many of the people we have talked to seem to have good luck with the 225. Our luck has not been so good - our MTBF on them is on the order of 6 months. This might be caused by several factors: 1. The drives we have are >relatively< old. That is, they are more than about 10 months old - there were some design changes in the drive about a year ago which >some< people claim seem to have helped reliability. 2. Once one failed, we swapped it with Seagate for a "refurbished" drive ... which would usually come back as one of the "old" models (with the red LED instead of the green LED). Therefore, we were always starting out with replacement drives which were something of a lemon. 3. It is possible our power isn't the best (we have surge protectors but no UPS). But on the other hand we know people who likewise have no UPS but have great luck with 225's. 4. Perhaps we just use them more heavily than average (we don't move the machines, but after all the seek mechanism is only good for so many seeks before it wears out). However the part that goes is usually the board and not the media or one of the motors ... On the other hand we know people who had several 225's for a couple of years with NO problems. For what it's worth, if a drive (ANY drive, not just a 225) goes bad, we have come to the conclusion that it is not worthwhile to have it sent in to swap for a refurbished drive (or have it repaired), but that it is a better use of time and money to get a NEW drive. (This may not apply if you have a maintenance contract). As for the WD controller, there are quite a few different models of them out there. Some of them are quite compatible, some of them have problems with different software packages. (yeah, I know, the software >SHOULDN'T< be aware of the controller unless it is an OS type product like OS/2, Concurrent DOS, maybe WINDOWS, but unfortunately many big-name software products ARE aware of the controller). If possible check out the combination with the software you want to use beforehand (this combo is common enough that it shouldn't be too hard to find one and check it out). Several things like language products from Microsoft seem to be some of the biggest offenders ... Bruce C. Wright
markd@proxftl.UUCP (Mark Davidson) (11/18/88)
In article <1198@fredonia.UUCP> grig8348@fredonia.UUCP (LoyEllen Griggs) writes: > >Maybe I'm the odd man out, but I've had _two_ ST225's running one on top of >the other in an XT compatible for two and a half years now with nary a >sign of a problem. [some text deleted...] > Have people really had massive problems with ST225's? With all this talk about ST225's, I thought I'd mention that I've had an ST-225 in my PC for 3 years and haven't had a single problem with it. Now, the Western Digital controller it is attached to is a different story... No, I don't take the machine on trips; no, it doesn't run 24 hours a day; No, I've never dropped it; I guess I'm just lucky. -- In real life: Mark E. Davidson uflorida!novavax!proxftl!markd Proximity Technology Inc., 3511 NE 22nd Ave, Ft. Lauderdale FL, 33308 #define STANDARD_DISCLAIMER <Quote construction site>
kevinc@auvax.UUCP (Kevin "auric" Crocker) (11/19/88)
> I think the reason I've had such good luck is that I do frequent backups. > Murphy's Law 2.3.6.7, Corollary 6, Paragraph 3.a, Subsection 1: The probability > of failure of a given disk drive is proportional to the cube of the time since > the last backup was made. > -- > George Lehmann, ...!uunet!apctrc!zgel05 Well, since George quoted me I feel obligated to respond. I also believe in Murphy and I do frequent backups. I do a full backup every month, I do update backups every week and I also do a partial backup on the directories that have changed every day. So what. All this means is that when the drive goes I probably won't loose much. I am not questioning the drives reliability so much as I am expressing an opinion that the noise makes me feel like the damn thing is going to not only die but jump out of the machine and grab my throat. The drive sounds like it is unreliable. I've had it now for about 5 months and other than some loading problems nothing has gone wrong, YET! I regularly need to power down the machine ( i.e reboot, since I have no warm boot mechanism) several times every day. I do a lot of intensive disk writes and reads on the order of about 100 every day so I think that I give the disk a pretty good work out. I can't afford to have 40Megs of data and programs disappear because I inevitably loose at least a day in restore. The last drive I had ran for just about two years and it had a MTBF of (Ithink) 30,000. If this one runs for as long then fine I will apologize, but I still will feel that the drive is unreliable until the day it dies. Prejudice is hard to overcome, especially when we are talking about hardware. Well, that's my $20,000,000,000 worth which at current market rates and expected inflation rates is worth about $.02 alberta!auvax!kevinc (Kevin "Auric" Crocker Athabasca University) Do our employers have opinions or is that what we get paid for!
mem@zinn.MV.COM (Mark E. Mallett) (11/22/88)
In article <1037@proxftl.UUCP> markd@proxftl.UUCP (Mark Davidson) writes: >With all this talk about ST225's, I thought I'd mention that I've had an >ST-225 in my PC for 3 years and haven't had a single problem with it. Now, >the Western Digital controller it is attached to is a different story... >No, I don't take the machine on trips; no, it doesn't run 24 hours a day; >No, I've never dropped it; I guess I'm just lucky. I guess I must have missed the anti-ST225 discussion; I really can't imagine such a thing. I bought an ST225 close to 4 years ago, have used it 24 hours a day since then with no problems whatsoever. The first half of its life it was used in a CP/M-based BBS. Then it saw long-term and heavy duty as the news disk here on zinn. Two days ago I retired it when I installed a ST4096 (purchased for much less than I originally got the ST225!) and moved the old 42MB MiniScribe over to /usr/spool duty. The ST225 has worked like a champ, and I know a number of people with similar experience. I'm sure mine will be put to use again. -mm- -- Mark E. Mallett Zinn Computer Co/ PO Box 4188/ Manchester NH/ 03103 Bus. Phone: 603 645 5069 Home: 603 424 8129 BIX: mmallett uucp: mem@zinn.MV.COM ( ...{decvax|elrond|harvard}!zinn!mem ) Northern MA and Southern NH consultants: Ask me about MV.COM
tim@lakesys.lakesys.com (Timothy Winslow) (08/21/90)
Two Seagate ST-225s for sale. These drives are in excellent condition. I have ran them through Norton Calibrate with the extensive pattern testing, and after the 16 hours each it took to test the drive, no bad sectors, nor questionable sectors came up. They have been parked everytime I shut down. I am asking $145 including COD shipping, or $135 prepay, each. If you want both, I'll send at $275 including COD, or $260 prepay. Please reply via E-Mail, as my incoming feed to the news is down right now. -- |Timothy Winslow/N9ICD | tim@lakesys.lakesys.com | uunet!marque!lakesys!tim| | csd4.csd.uwm.edu!lakesys.lakesys.com!tim | When it's worth the watchin'- | | U.S. Snail:6153 N. Flint Rd.| Milwaukee, WI 53209-3715 | give me a call!| | Phone: (414)351-4975 weekdays 12:30P-4P CT ONLY! | FAX (414)351-4975 |