mermelstein%tel.inrs.cdn@relay.ubc.ca (lois mermelstein) (02/10/89)
I need the help of the Collective Net Mind on hard drives, mainly because I suspect the local dealer isn't quite sure what he's talking about. My two main choices seem to be between the 2090A with either a 45M Rodime 22-ms drive or a Miniscribe 40M, 25-ms drive, or else the GVP 40M 11-ms access time hard card. I'm leaning towards the GVP, but some of my info. seems to be contradictory. I hope someone out there knows what's really cooking.... The guy at the dealer's said the Rodime and the Miniscribe are ST506 drives, and that SCSI doesn't work particularly well on the 2090A. This seems kind of strange to me -- anyone know different? No one seems to be sure if the GVP card does DMA -- does it? What sort of performance penalty exists if it doesn't? Will this matter if I bankrupt myself now and have to wait years more before getting something like the 68020 card? Do prices of about $1000 (for the 2090A + drive) and $1300 (for the GVP) sound about right (these are Canadian prices)? How easy is these GVP to sound about right (these are Canadian prices)? How easy is these GVP to install if I resort to mail order? And, oh yes, has anyone had any bad experiences with these that they'd care to share? I know about the problem some Seagate's have spinning up - are there other similar traps like these out there? If enough people e-mail, I'll summarize to the net. Thanks much for the help, Lois Mermelstein mermelstein@tel.inrs.cdn (the only path I know)
kevin@uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) (02/10/89)
In article <8422@louie.udel.EDU> mermelstein%tel.inrs.cdn@relay.ubc.ca (lois mermelstein) writes: >I need the help of the Collective Net Mind on hard drives, mainly because >I suspect the local dealer isn't quite sure what he's talking about. > >My two main choices seem to be between the 2090A with either a 45M Rodime >22-ms drive or a Miniscribe 40M, 25-ms drive, or else the GVP 40M 11-ms >access time hard card. I'm leaning towards the GVP, but some of my info. >seems to be contradictory. I hope someone out there knows what's really >cooking.... A number of us here at Amdahl bought 2090A's and Quantum Prodrive 80S. The Quantum is a 80M, 19ms, 3 1/2 HH SCSI drive with a 64K lookahead cache. I'd guess you can get a setup like that for $1100 (drives available available from Hard Drives International (800-234-DISK) for $775). > >The guy at the dealer's said the Rodime and the Miniscribe are ST506 drives, >and that SCSI doesn't work particularly well on the 2090A. This seems kind >of strange to me -- anyone know different? We've all gotten quite respectable performance from this setup (greater than 500K bytes/seconds using diskperf.) This is quite respectable. >No one seems to be sure if the GVP card does DMA -- does it? What sort of >performance penalty exists if it doesn't? Will this matter if I bankrupt >myself now and have to wait years more before getting something like >the 68020 card? GVP does not DMA. This could cause you serious performance penalties if you buy a Commodore 2620 (68020 board.) >Do prices of about $1000 (for the 2090A + drive) and $1300 (for the GVP) >sound about right (these are Canadian prices)? How easy is these GVP to >install if I resort to mail order? From some experiences we've had here, the GVP seems MUCH easier to install than the 2090A. The 2090A document is WRONG in many places and contradictory in many others. But is works just fine once you get it set up. >And, oh yes, has anyone had any bad experiences with these that they'd >care to share? I know about the problem some Seagate's have spinning up - >are there other similar traps like these out there? I still have an occasional hang on reboot (or power up.) It accesses the first floppy drive and hangs with the floppy drive light on (but I'll live with that instead of floppies any day ;-) >Thanks much for the help, >Lois Mermelstein Kevin -- UUCP: kevin@uts.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,seismo,oliveb}!amdahl!kevin DDD: 408-737-5481 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]