[comp.sys.atari.st] megafile 44 for backups

rosenkra@convex.com (William Rosencranz) (10/23/90)

---
i have a mega4 with megafile 60 and am considering getting a megafile 44
as another disk and for backups. i have several questions which would be
nice to have answered before i shell out the $$$. i run ahdx 3.01 or
whatever is current (6 mo ago). i just realized that the carts at developer
prices are only marginally more expensive than floppy disks and will save
my floppy from wearing down every 12 months :-). still using TOS 1.2...

1) is there any problem with setting LUN on the megafile 44 (the 60 has 
a nice little cover on top to get at the DIP switches) to daisychain these
two together?

2) is there a significant speed difference in disk access, either relative
to each other, or due to adding another LUN (i.e. will the 44 perform
comparably to the 60 and will adding the 44 to the system slow down the 60
for any reason)? what is the access speed on the 44? i believe the 60 is
probably 65 ms or so.

3) tape is cheaper than the 44, at least the media itself. are there any
streaming tape systems i can just plug into the 60's DMA port and merrily
make backups (with proper s/w, of course) instead? i don't want to fiddle
too much with h/w (no soldering :-).

4) will i need to change drivers (ahdx 3.01) to accomplish this? if so,
what will i need?

unrelated, does anyone have anything to say about the wuztek grayscale
monitors?

any response will be helpful.

thanx...


-bill
rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com
--
Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!c1yankee!rosenkra
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com

klute@heike.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) (10/25/90)

In article <107565@convex.convex.com>, rosenkra@convex.com (William
Rosencranz) writes:
|> 1) is there any problem with setting LUN on the megafile 44 (the 60 has
|> |> a nice little cover on top to get at the DIP switches) to daisychain
|> these
|> two together?

I don't know what "LUN" stands for, but...
The Megafile44's DIP switches are accessible without opening the cover and
violating any warranty. Personally I have driven a Megafile44 both as drive
0 and drive 1 without any problem.


|> 2) is there a significant speed difference in disk access, either relative
|> to each other, or due to adding another LUN (i.e. will the 44 perform
|> comparably to the 60 and will adding the 44 to the system slow down the 60
|> for any reason)? what is the access speed on the 44? i believe the 60 is
|> probably 65 ms or so.

28 ms. However, if you are concerned in speed get TOS 1.4! With older TOS
versions you will hardly notice any speed difference between 65 and 28 ms.


|> 4) will i need to change drivers (ahdx 3.01) to accomplish this? if so,
|> what will i need?

No, Ahdi 3.01 is fine.


-- 
  Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute      klute@irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
  Univ. Dortmund, IRB             klute@unido.uucp, klute@unido.bitnet
  Postfach 500500         |)|/    Tel.: +49 231 755-4663
D-4600 Dortmund 50        |\|\    Fax : +49 231 755-2386

erlingh@idt.unit.no (Erling Henanger) (10/27/90)

I'm also interested in this info.

I'm wondering wether I could just buy the Syquest mechanism and 
plug it into the Adaptec controller in my megafile.

If you want to add a second drive, were do you connect it ?
	1) to the port j1 (besides j0 where the original drive is connected) ?
	2) And the datalines, can they just be extended via a cross-cable ?

The adaptec is an RLL controller, is the syquest RLL or SCSI ?

Pugh,, lotsa questions, but I would really like to hear from anyone that
has done this to his(/her ?) megafile.

Erling Henanger
erlingh@idt.unit.no /* That's in Norway */