bowden@gumby.cc.wmich.edu (Michael L. Bowden) (09/13/89)
I bought a 296N within the last 2 months, along with the ST02B controller (which can handle floppies as well). Considering that I went from an old 20 meg CMI drive with a transfer rate of about 230 KB/sec. to the Seagate at 450 KB/sec. I'm quite happy with it. My only complaints are that Hard Drives International advertised it as a package that can handle 1:1 interleave, but the best it can do is 2:1. If you can get a drive with a revision 7 ROM you'll be able to do 1:1, but the burden will be on you to push the issue. Otherwise they'll tell you they'd be happy to send it in for a "field upgrade", in which case you can wait for some unspecified period of time (> 2 weeks), and you can count on not getting the same drive back. (note: the current ROM revision is 8, which was put in as a "slow-down" specifically for the Macintosh...probably Plus) I'd like the extra speed (supposedly up to 700 KB/sec), but I'm addicted to the extra space, and I'm already running faster that I was before. As far as I can tell, this is one of the best hard disk values around, and I'd do it over again even with the above complaints. Hope this helps.