[comp.sys.amiga] comments on M.A.S.T. "Tiny Tiger" SCSI hard drive?

kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) (06/22/89)

The M.A.S.T. Tiny Tiger is a SCSI hard drive that connects to the parallel
printer port.  They advertise fast loading (but not in diskperf terms, so I
don't know).  I have an A1000 so not every drive will work on my system.  I
understand this drive will not be as high-performance as DMA drives.  That's OK.

I don't know the reputation of the maker.  If anyone has used this drive,
I'd like to know.  If anyone has horror stories about other M.A.S.T.
peripherals, please let me hear about them.

Thanks fer yer support

Marcus@cup.portal.com (Mark W Shnayer) (06/23/89)

Kurt@tc.fluke.com (Kurt Guntheroth) says:

>The M.A.S.T. Tiny Tiger is a SCSI hard drive that connects to the parallel
>printer port.  They advertise fast loading (but not in diskperf terms, so I
>don't know).  I have an A1000 so not every drive will work on my system.  I
>understand this drive will not be as high-performance as DMA drives.  That's OK.
>
>I don't know the reputation of the maker.  If anyone has used this drive,
>I'd like to know.  If anyone has horror stories about other M.A.S.T.
                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>peripherals, please let me hear about them.
>
>Thanks fer yer support

You want horror stories about Tiny Tiger? I got a doozy for ya.
I ordered my MAST Tiny Tiger 50 meg for $799 thru a local Amiga only
store. The first ( I did say first...) one I received was a total
waste. "Not a DOS disk" and other messages. I tried reformatting and
that seemed ok (took 5 1/2 hours, figure that one out...). 
Then I copied about 500k to the drive and got massive read/write errors.
Heck with this. I brought it back (thats why I go thru locals, NOT
mail order), and asked for a replacement.

The store apologized and ordered another one. When they got the HD this
time they checked it out before calling me. They found not only was
the mountlist full of errors, but that the media itself once again
had massive hard sector errors. For some reason those errors are not
getting mapped out. 

This drive is SUPPOSED to be "plug n' play". Comes already formatted
and with Ultra-Dos (tm) Utilities on it. Needless to say they returned
THAT one too and ordered yet another one direct from M.A.S.T. instead
of going to their distributor.

The replacement ought to be here in a few days and I'll post the
continuing horror story or maybe it won't be a horror story and
everyone will be happy (yea.....sure...)
Marcus@cup.portal.com

elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (06/23/89)

in article <9254@fluke.COM>, kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) says:
> The M.A.S.T. Tiny Tiger is a SCSI hard drive that connects to the parallel
> printer port.  They advertise fast loading (but not in diskperf terms, so I
> don't know).  I have an A1000 so not every drive will work on my system.  I
> understand this drive will not be as high-performance as DMA drives.  That's OK.

I have no experience with the Tiny Tiger. However, I do recall a
previous attempt at a parallel-port hard drive (Microbotics?). It was
extremely slow -- about the same speed as a floppy drive. 

I recommend a Supra or C Ltd. instead. Both SHOULD have an A1000
version (I don't know if they have run out yet or not). 

--
    Eric Lee Green              P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509     
     ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg     (318)989-9849    
"I have seen or heard 'designer of the 68000' attached to so many names that
 I can only guess that the 68000 was produced by Cecil B. DeMille." -- Bcase