orion@nuchat (Roland Dunkerley III) (12/22/89)
I am currently in the process of putting together a
machine, and have seen the ads for the PerStor Disk
controllers claiming to give 190% of the storage on a
standard MFM drive. The drives I plan to use are a
Seagate ST-251, and an ST-4096. If this gadget works
it would give me 228Mb instead of the 120 that these
drives provide, with a 9Mbit/s transfer rate instead of
5. My question is have any of you used the PerStor
controllers, do they really work as advertised on
standard drives with no problems? What technology do
they use to accomplish this? I will be running Unix
System V/386 from Bell Tech on this box, has anyone
gotten such a combination to work with BellTech Unix,
or with any other SV/386? Oh, the release number is
3.0 if that makes a big difference, I had heard that
scsi controllers don't work without the 3.2 update...
As usual, please reply by mail, and if anyone else
wants to know I'll either forward the info to them, or
summarize and follow-up.
thanx in advance,
Roland Pleasant Dunkerley III, K.S.C., NonD
(orion@nuchat.sccsi.com)
K A T E B U S H I S G O D !skipl@adaptex.UUCP (12/23/89)
/* Written 6:19 am Dec 22, 1989 by nuchat.UUCP!orion%nuchat in adaptex:comp.sy.ibm.pc */
/* ---------- "PerStor Controllers" ---------- */
/ am currently in the process of putting together a
/achine, and have seen the ads for the PerStor Disk
/ontrollers claiming to give 190% of the storage on a
/tandard MFM drive. The drives I plan to use are a
/eagate ST-251, and an ST-4096. If this gadget works
/t would give me 228Mb instead of the 120 that these
/rives provide, with a 9Mbit/s transfer rate instead of
/. My question is have any of you used the PerStor
/ontrollers, do they really work as advertised on
/tandard drives with no problems? What technology do
/hey use to accomplish this? I will be running Unix
/ystem V/386 from Bell Tech on this box, has anyone
/otten such a combination to work with BellTech Unix,
/r with any other SV/386? Oh, the release number is
/.0 if that makes a big difference, I had heard that
/csi controllers don't work without the 3.2 update...
/s usual, please reply by mail, and if anyone else
/ants to know I'll either forward the info to them, or
/ummarize and follow-up.
/
/ thanx in advance,
Roland Pleasant Dunkerley III, K.S.C., NonD
(orion@nuchat.sccsi.com)
K A T E B U S H I S G O D !
/* End of text from adaptex:comp.sy.ibm.pc */
I suggest that you be very careful with this approach. I spent 22 years in the
drive business and feel I know that technology very well. Don't know
anything about that controller company but I strongly recommend
you talk directly to the Seagate people to make sure the drives will
handle this and they will stand behind it. Try them at (800) 468-3472,
that's the last number I have for them. Looking forward to hearing about
your experiences. Maybe we are looking at something new and improved.KUO@oregon.uoregon.edu (Shijong Kuo) (12/25/89)
> I got this article/ad. from a BBS. Maybe of interest to some people.
New PERSTOR 200 series ATF hard disk controllers
Perstor Systems, Inc. announces the latest additions to the
PERSTOR 200 series product line. The PS180-16F and the PS200-16F
are Perstor's Advanced Data Recording Technology hard/floppy disk
controllers for the IBM AT, 386 computers, and compatibles with
processor speeds up to 25 mHz. Both controllers feature a 16 bit
bus and are port address and register set compatible with the IBM
AT Controller. In addition both boards will function properly in
any 16 bit bus slot at speeds up to and including 16 Mhz and 0
wait states.
The PS180-16F and PS200-16F include dual port RAM support and
an onboard BIOS supporting over 60 different hard disk drive
types. Each controller supports two hard disk drives and two
floppy disk drives. Compatible floppy drives include 360K,
720K, 1.2MB and 1.44MB with either 5 1/4 inch or 3 1/2 inch form
factors.
The PS180-16F increases the capacity of new or existing ST506/412
Winchester drives by 90%, whether MFM or RLL. It operates at 9
megabits per second and allocates 31 sectors per track, The
PS200-16F increases the capacity of new or existing RLL hard disk
drives having plated media by a full 100%. It operates at 10
megabits per second and allocates 34 sectors per track. Both
controllers are capable of operating with interleaves as low
as 1.
The Technical Specifications
The Perstor 200 Series ATF Controller is a stand-alone single
board, general purpose Winchester hard disk and floppy disk
controller. It interfaces up to two hard disk drives and up to
two floppy diskette drives to a host processor having a 16 bit
bus connection (an IBM AT or compatible utilizing an 80286,
80386SX or 80386 processor AND utilizing the 16 bit dual
connector interface). The controller uses the host BIOS which
be compatable with the IBM PC-AT BIOS in functionality.
The Winchester interface is based upon the Seagate Technology
ST506/412HP interface specifications, as enhanced by Perstor
Systems, Inc. All necessary receivers and drivers are included on
the board, allowing direct connection to the disk drive(s).
Separate computer access ports enable communications between the
host and disk or diskette controller. An 8/16 bit bi-directional
bus and appropriate control signals comprise these ports. Disk
read and write data, status information, and command parameters
are transferred via this bus. An on-board data buffer allows bus
transfers to be executed independently of the drive's data
transfer or transfer rate.
The PERSTOR 200 series ATF Controller is based on proprietary
custom VLSI integrated circuits. The RLL encoding scheme is a
modified time shifted IBM 3360 type format, which has the
highest frequency in the all zero mode.
The PERSTOR 200 series ATF Controller connects to the system
board using one of the system expansion slots. The controller
controls the 5-1/4 or 3-1/2 inch floppy and hard disk drives.
Connectors on the controller supply all the signals necessary to
operate up to two hard disks and two floppy disks. The controller
will allow concurrent data operations on one hard disk and one
floppy disk.
The controller operates when connected to a system board
expansion slot. This channel is described in the "System Board"
section of the IBM Personal Computer AT Technical Reference
Manual, or its equivalent from another manufacturer.
The fixed disk function features 512-byte sectors, high-speed PIO
data transfers, ECC correction of up to 22 bits on data fields,
multiple sector operations across track and cylinder boundaries,
and on-board diagnostic tests. The controller will support two
fixed disks with up to 16 read/write heads and 2048 cylinders,
providing that the host machine BIOS will support such
capacities.
Standard Features
* Fully compatable with MS/DOS or PC/DOS versions 2.0 thru 3.31,
SCO Xenix System V and Novell Advanced Netware version 2.12
and higher.
* 16 bit bi-directional bus host interface
* IBM AT Winchester controller emulation, IBM PC AT host
interface
* High performance data separator and write precompensation
devices
* Data rates up to 10 megabits per second
* Controls up to two drives using ST506/412HP
* Supports drives of any configuration up to 2048 cylinders and
16 read/write heads
* The controlled drives need not be of the same capacity or
configuration
* Error correction on data field errors (56 bit), CRC ID field
verification
* Extended ECC polynomial for error detection and correction
(22 bit span or 11 bit span)
* Automatic restore and re-seek on all seek errors
* Automatic formatting
* 512 bytes per sector
* Sector interleave capability, selectable from 1 to 1 to 16 to 1
interleave ratio for each drive independently
* Multiple sector reads and writes
* Overlapped seek capability on buffered-step drives
* Supports implied seeks on all commands
* Internal diagnostics
* DMA transfer capability
* Supports interrupts, interrupt requests, and DMA request
sharing
* Includes socket for user or PERSTOR supplied 2764 BIOS ROM
extended drive tables
* Perstor PS180 and PS200 IBM PC/AT compatible BIOS
* RLLC 2,7 modified (IBM 3370 format) Advanced Run Lenght
Limited Coding
* 360K & 1.2mb 5-1/4", 720K & 1.44mb 3-1/2" floppy support
* Extended drive table support with on board bios at C800:0
Addtional Features
* Supported by Ontrack Systems Disk Manager, Storage Dimentions
SpeedStor and Golden Bow Systems V-feature Deluxe formating and
partitioning software. Also by Gibson Research Spinrite,Paul
Mace's Mace Utilities and Peter Norton's Norton Utilities and
Norton Utilities Advanced Edition disk diagnostics programs.
* Ability to have two of the Perstor controllers co-reside,
allowing control of up to FOUR hard drives.
* Supportes Ontrack Systems SUPERPROMS enhancement proms.
* The 8-bit and 16-bit controllers can co-exist.
* The 8-bit and 16-bit controllers are completely format
compatable allowing drives to be moved from one to the other
by simply pluging and unpluging cables.
* Stand alone SETUP program that will allow CMOS reconfiguration
via the user supplied or PERSTOR supplied extended drive type
tables. Current BIOS will have over 60 drives types defined
for you to select from.
* Competitive pricing with combination controllers that offer
far less hard drive and floppy drive features or performance.
* Optional dual quad density support for floppy diskette drives,
with up to 1Megabit transfer rate, and unlimited track support
for the floppy diskette drives (4 Mbyte per diskette capacity,
formats to 2.88 Mbyte). A Perstor industry first .
* The Perstor 200 Series ATF controller will be available in two
models. The PS180-16F will be familiar to you as the big
brother to the PS180, with 31 sectors per track, and a
transfer rate of 9mbits per second. The PS200-16F will be the
equivalent of the PS200, with 34 sectors per track, and a
transfer rate of 10mbits per second.
Further information may be obtained by contacting Mark Fife
Vice-President Sales Perstor Systems at (602) 991-5451. Twenty
four hour Bulletin board technical support is available by modem
on the Perstor BBS at (602) 998-4939 at up to 9600 baud.
Ted Buck SYSOP.
<end of file>davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (12/29/89)
In article <6100040@adaptex> skipl@adaptex.UUCP writes: | I suggest that you be very careful with this approach. I spent 22 years in the | drive business and feel I know that technology very well. Don't know | anything about that controller company but I strongly recommend | you talk directly to the Seagate people to make sure the drives will | handle this and they will stand behind it. Try them at (800) 468-3472, | that's the last number I have for them. Looking forward to hearing about | your experiences. Maybe we are looking at something new and improved. Two points: first Seagate won't support any RLL on non-RLL drives, they sell RLL drives for higher prices. However, I have used the PS180 with ST4096 and ST251 without problems. I have not used the new PS180-16F and PS200-16F which have the floppy controller. Second, Perstor is an OLD controller company, I believe I did business with them in the 70's for S-100 stuff. The original PS180 didn't have a floppy controller and wasn't compatible with UNIX. I sent mine back. It DID work very well for DOS, however, which satisfied a lot of customers. The new versions do have the floppy controller, and do work with UNIX. The new 16 bit "200 series" controllers are 16 bit and the 200-16F offers 34 sectors/track, which doubles the capacity of the drive. They claim it will work with any plated media drive, and I believe they have a 30 day return policy. -- bill davidsen - sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX davidsen@sixhub.uucp ...!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen "Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon
jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) (12/30/89)
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes: >In article <6100040@adaptex> skipl@adaptex.UUCP writes: > >| I suggest that you be very careful with this approach. I spent 22 years in the >| drive business and feel I know that technology very well. Don't know >| anything about that controller company but I strongly recommend >| you talk directly to the Seagate people to make sure the drives will >| handle this and they will stand behind it. Try them at (800) 468-3472, >| that's the last number I have for them. Looking forward to hearing about >| your experiences. Maybe we are looking at something new and improved. > > Two points: first Seagate won't support any RLL on non-RLL drives, >they sell RLL drives for higher prices. However, I have used the PS180 >with ST4096 and ST251 without problems. I have not used the new >PS180-16F and PS200-16F which have the floppy controller. Second, >Perstor is an OLD controller company, I believe I did business with them >in the 70's for S-100 stuff. > > The original PS180 didn't have a floppy controller and wasn't >compatible with UNIX. I sent mine back. It DID work very well for DOS, >however, which satisfied a lot of customers. The new versions do have >the floppy controller, and do work with UNIX. The new 16 bit "200 >series" controllers are 16 bit and the 200-16F offers 34 sectors/track, >which doubles the capacity of the drive. They claim it will work with >any plated media drive, and I believe they have a 30 day return policy. What if their controller kills the drive? A possibility, and what if I develop problems with the drive after sending the PerStor back and my (Seagate) drive dies and Seagate refuses to service it because it was formatted ARLL? // JCA /* **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* ** Flames : /dev/null | My opinions are exactly that, ** ARPANET : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil | mine. Bill Gates couldn't buy ** INTERNET: jca@pnet01.cts.com | it, but he could rent it. :) ** UUCP : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hd-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* */
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (12/31/89)
In article <1011@crash.cts.com> jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes: | What if their controller kills the drive? A possibility, and what if I | develop problems with the drive after sending the PerStor back and my | (Seagate) drive dies and Seagate refuses to service it because it was | formatted ARLL? You make your own decision. This has been beaten to death. There is no reason why formatting a drive in any format should (a) hurt it, or (b) prevent it from being reformatted in another format. After you reformat it MFM it doesn't show RLL use, and there's no reason for ANY manufacturer to void the warantee. If the drive dies completely I doubt that anyone is going to fix it so they can see what format is on it, and in testing the fix they would reformat it anyway. Seagate doesn't want to replace drives which are okay MFM (as designed) and bad RLL. Therefore they void the warantee if you tell them you did it. If you want total warantee coverage and cost is no object, go ESDI or SCSI. -- bill davidsen - sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX davidsen@sixhub.uucp ...!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen "Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon