king@cell.mot.COM (Steven King) (11/20/89)
I'm looking for a good hard drive for my 500. I've really got very simple
requirments:
o 40 Meg or better
o MUST allow for memory expansion (either provide its own sockets or
pass the expansion bus through; preferably the former)
o MUST not be so honking big that it interferes with me hitting the
ESCape key, or anything else on the left side of the keyboard
And a couple "it would be nice, but I don't really need it" items:
o Auto-boot
o Ability to daisy-chain additional SCSI devices
I've been looking at the GVP Impact 500 and Supra's hard drive for the 500
and both seem to fit the bill. My biggest question is about the Supra: will
it interfere with the keyboard? The picture shows it as a great whopping
box, but it doesn't indicate how far back it sits. (The GVP is also a great
whopping box, but it's pictured connected to a 500 and sitting back out of
the way.)
Can anyone tell me about these two drives, or suggest any others that would
fit my requirements? I'm really feeling the crunch here; running ARexx off
of floppies is NOT a fun thing to do! Email replies please, and I'll post
a summary.
--
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If there's a byte of data in the computer but no | Steve King (708) 991-8056
pointer is pointing to it, then it isn't really | ...uunet!motcid!king
there. | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevekrobin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) (11/22/89)
Please e-mail me too on this. (OR POST, lots of people would probably like to know.) +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |The views expressed herein, are the sole responsibility of the typist at hand| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |USNail: UUCP: | |2323 Wells Branch Pkwy., #G107 cs.utexas.edu!romp!ibmaus!auschs\ | |Austin, TX 78728 !sabre.austin.ibm.com!robin | |Home: (512)251-6889 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
eberger@godot.psc.edu (Ed Berger) (11/28/89)
In article <418@grape3.UUCP> king@cell.mot.COM (Steven King) writes: >I'm looking for a good hard drive for my 500. I've really got very simple >requirments: > > o MUST allow for memory expansion (either provide its own sockets or > pass the expansion bus through; preferably the former) > o MUST not be so honking big that it interferes with me hitting the > ESCape key, or anything else on the left side of the keyboard > o Auto-boot > o Ability to daisy-chain additional SCSI devices Some Comments: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any SCSI interface that doesn't let you connect up additional SCSI devices is Brain DEAD. Memory expansion capability is important, each and every partition you setup on your Hardrive eats your RAM, and you can easily be back to the 512K blues. Now most external bus RAM upgrades are EXPENSIVE! (0K board for $300 ugh!) Just how big is "honking big", and why would you want to escape? ;-) >I've been looking at the GVP Impact 500 and Supra's hard drive for the 500 >and both seem to fit the bill. My biggest question is about the Supra: will >it interfere with the keyboard? The picture shows it as a great whopping >box, but it doesn't indicate how far back it sits. (The GVP is also a great >whopping box, but it's pictured connected to a 500 and sitting back out of >the way.) Ah the lure of magazine Ads.... The Supra Ads don't show the A500 controller at all. They are showing the drive case, which doesn't even connect to your A500. The Supra Controller is a case that has the front sloped to match the curve of the A500 case. No it won't get in your way. -The A500 SCSI controller gets its power from the external drive along with the SCSI through it's totally nonstandard 37pin D connector -The RAM card plugs into the SCSI controller, and eats up too much current for the A500's supply, so it needs the drive power supply. I have the Supra with 2M/RAM. The RAM works fine, but the controller seems defective, I'll have to call their customer service, and arrange to send it back :-( . The GVP (especially its new incarnation with autoboot standard, and up to 4M RAMlooks pretty nice. Their Ads also never show you something. They never show their power supply which has a case just like the A500s. I have no idea of how the Trumpcard500, Synergy500 or Xetec Fastrack, compare. I personally think the Commodore A590 would be the way to go, unless CMI's multiport board/SCSI for the A500 appears, or MASTs Infinity machine comes out with support for a math coprocessor (Its not in their vapor-drawings). -Ed Berger eberger@b.psc.edu
king@cell.mot.COM (Steven King) (11/29/89)
I promised a summary, so here it be. In my original question I was looking for a hard drive for my A500. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ah the lure of magazine Ads.... The Supra Ads don't show the A500 controller at all. They are showing the drive case, which doesn't even connect to your A500. The Supra Controller is a case that has the front sloped to match the curve of the A500 case. No it won't get in your way. -The A500 SCSI controller gets its power from the external drive along with the SCSI through it's totally nonstandard 37pin D connector -The RAM card plugs into the SCSI controller, and eats up too much current for the A500's supply, so it needs the drive power supply. I have the Supra with 2M/RAM. The RAM works fine, but the controller seems defective, I'll have to call their customer service, and arrange to send it back :-( . The GVP (especially its new incarnation with autoboot standard, and up to 4M RAMlooks pretty nice. Their Ads also never show you something. They never show their power supply which has a case just like the A500s. I have no idea of how the Trumpcard500, Synergy500 or Xetec Fastrack, compare. I personally think the Commodore A590 would be the way to go, unless CMI's multiport board/SCSI for the A500 appears, or MASTs Infinity machine comes out with support for a math coprocessor (Its not in their vapor-drawings). -Ed Berger eberger@b.psc.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am typing this on my Amiga 500 with a GVP Impact 500 with 40meg quantum drive. It does not interfere with my typing. I have had no problems with it since setup. Here are my gripes: quality control - the autoboot/memory daughterboard fell out of its socket during shipping. I put it back in place myself and everything is fine, autoboots great (i run noclick and never have to put a disk in the drive to quiet the clicking - I tossed my external 3 1/2 drive to the closet as it is not needed. noise - the fan is loud (i am used to it now) when I first installed i was irritated by the fan noise as I had gotten used to leaving my quiet fanless 500 on for weeks on end. Since the machine is in my bedroom and the fan makes noise I can't do this anymore. speed - I kinda wish I waited and bought the smaller commodore a590 hard disk. Although the hard disk it comes with sucks the controller is the best on the market by far and when money starts to roll in I could replace the drive it came with by a CDC WREN V or something reasonable :-) although I am so busy about the only thing I use my amiga 500 for is as a terminal to the suns, vaxen, and DECstations at work. Jeff Webber / U of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies path: uunet!mimsy!jsw phone (301)-454-7687 jsw@lorax.umiacs.umd.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a GVP Impact, 40 Meg and am very happy with it. The newer versions of the GVP have a few additional features that mine does not, like the RAM/ Autoboot module already installed at no extra cost. You can put up to 4Meg of RAM on the new one which should suffice. When I went looking for my hard drive space was a big consideration and the GVP takes up much less space than the Supra so I got it. Since then I have had no problems and have been very happy with it and have even convinced others to buy them on my recommendation. Tim Harris ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for everyone's help! I ordered the GVP Impact 500 w/40Meg Quantum drive last Friday; hopefully it will arrive soon. -- ---------------------------------------------------+--------------------------- I'm very good at giving directions, especially if | Steve King (708) 991-8056 I'm giving them to myself, 'cause I know what I'm | ...uunet!motcid!king talking about. | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek