MAXG@SUVM.BITNET (Gerry Greenberg) (05/12/89)
I know that this topic has been discussed before, so excuse me if I'm boring too many of you, but I've gotten interested in getting a hard drive for my ST again recently, and would appreciate some input on the following concerns. One of the main reasons I became interested again, is that I recently saw an add for the BMS 2000 (or 200?) [presumably Berkeley Micro-Systems] controller card in a recent ST/Amiga catalog...I think the name of the company in question has the name Brown in it, or something like that. Anyway, the controller costs $139 or something like that, and it will work with a Seagate SCSI PC drive. They also are selling a shoebox type case with a fan and power supply for $99 (again, I think this was the price). What the ad did not say is what size the power supply is and what size the fan is. Now, the questions. What are the advantages/disadvantages to using a SCSI PC drive, rather than an MFM or RLL drive? I have seen descriptions of how to put together a hard drive with one of the latter two, and it seemed more complicated somehow...I seem to remember having to deal with more than one controller card, or something like that. But, are the MFM and/or RLL drives better? Do they cost less? Info on any of these topics would be greatly appreciated. Now, onto the case, power supply, and fan. I thought the price for these three things seemed relatively reasonable...the only thing is that the sizes of fan and power supply weren't mentioned. What sizes would be OK, recommended, best, etc.? And what sizes would be just plain unsatisfactory? Also, any other ideas about prices? I guess I thought that since they sold all pieces together, it might make more sense to go that way, since presumably everything will fit together reasonably well. Thanks very much in advance for any advice...you can post it to the net, or send me email directly. Addresses: maxg@suvm.bitnet ggreenbe@rodan.acs.syr.edu
bbsuser@bdt.UUCP (HENRY KWAN) (05/16/89)
> > Now, the questions. What are the advantages/disadvantages to using a > SCSI PC drive, rather than an MFM or RLL drive? I have seen > descriptions of how to put together a hard drive with one of the latter > two, and it seemed more complicated somehow...I seem to remember having > to deal with more than one controller card, or something like that. > But, are the MFM and/or RLL drives better? Do they cost less? Info on > any of these topics would be greatly appreciated. > SCSI drives are faster than ST506/412 drives when used with the ST. On ICD's RATEHD program, ST506/412 (with Adaptec controllers) never got anything higher than a 375 (+/-) Kps rating while SCSI drives got far higher ratings. (Seagate SCSI drives got 575 (+/-) Kps while Imprimis SCSI drives got 1,000 (+/-) Kps ratings.) The downside is that SCSI drives generally cost a bit more than ST506/412 drives. Another plus for SCSI drives is that you can chain up to seven drives together. Finally, SCSI drives are easier to handle since it's in one nice and compact package. Henry Kwan -=- ...{claris|ucsfcca}!wet!logic "I don't know what I'm blattering about but I'm blattering nevertheless..."