lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (07/07/89)
In <1889@leah.Albany.Edu>, hb136@leah.Albany.Edu (Herb Brown) writes: >Are Xetec Controllers that Fast? >Consumer Alert > [ much deleted ] > While it is true that the Xetec controllers did provide test results > that were stated in the Amiga World articles, Xetec (either accidentally or > on purpose) designed a MAJOR BUG into their controller so that it would too > well. It works like this: all of the disk performance test programs have > several things in common; they all use standard AmigaDOS Save/Load routines, > they all store successively larger files and none of them test for data > integrity. The BUG in the Xetec products prevents them from doing sequential > reads or writes of more than 128K of data, and it does so without reporting > any error of any kind to indicate that the file was not written or read > properly. This allows the Xetec products to read (or write) only the first > 128K of a 1Meg file and still seemingly complete the test, and very quickly > at that! Let me first say that I don't have a Xetec controller, I am not familiar with them, and don't even know anyone who owns one. That's a pretty hefty accusation. Do you really think that a company would design a controller to get good performance tests and corrupt data in real-life use? I hope your lawyers are good. The real question is not whether or not the Xetec (or any other controller for that matter) will handle a request of >128K, but whether or not the fact is documented. This is a simple matter of setting a MaxTransfer value. If indeed they don't document this in their manuals, it is a grave mistake indeed. Of course I wouldn't go so far as to accuse them of corrupting data to get the performance figures up. > Note SOME Manufacturers were unsuccessful in using this HARDdrive -- We > supports MOST every drive made.) We? Is this yet another thinly veiled slam at a competitor by C Ltd.? Let's hear from a Xetec owner about that documentation. -larry -- Van Roy's Law: An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+