stevenp@gvgpsa.UUCP (05/06/87)
I would like to get any information people on the net have regarding two subjects. Please respond by mail, if there is enough interest I'll sumarize. 1) RLL and ARLL Controllers ADAPTEC has several relatively inexpensive controllers out that can greatly increase disk capacity and speed. I'm thinking about getting one of these. Does anyone have any information or experience? I've heard you have to have a good, reliable disk to run these on, but I have a ST4096 which is a plated-media drive. 2) Partion Format Does anyone have or know where to get a hold of the format and location of the partion data on a hard disk? Thanks, Steven Parkes tektronix!gvgpsa!stevenp
wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (05/09/87)
Re: RLL controllers. I've used the OMTI/sms, Western Digital, and Adaptec controllers. The OMTI-5627 and W-D WX-A have the advantage of being half-card and make extensive use of SMD technology, so they ought to be pretty reliable. I was very impressed with W-D as they answer their 800 customer number on the 2nd ring, and the first person after the secretary knows the correct answers. The Adaptec full-length card takes the longest to perform the low level format of the drive, so presumably has the most thorough error checking. Re: Partition Table To handle >32 meg drives, you can edit the partition table by hand, or else get speedstor to automate everything. Speedstor has the disadvantage of costing $90 and *is* copy-proofed in at least some versions. Speedstor does, however, do its job well. The Norton Utilities, version 4.0 Advanced includes a partition table editor in the program, NU. When setting up with NU, life is much easier if you can refer to the IBM dos technical reference manual. Speedstor includes a device driver that mounts all the drive's partitions as logical drives, so there is no problem switching back and forth. --Bill (wtm@neoucom.UUCP)