mdh@mitre.org (Mike Houle (version .6 beta)) (10/06/89)
About a Month ago, I asked people if they thought getting a Macintosh with
a internal Hard Disk was a good Idea. I said that money was not a problem, I
just wanted to know about quality. I was really qurious if apple did extra
tests on the Hard Disks that they buy from the various manufactures.
The basic response was to forgo buying the hard disk from apple, and get
a 3rd party hard disk instead.
I am only mentioning the mailed replies, becuase I assume most people have
seen the posted replies...
The responses were as follows.
[all files were trimmed down a bit... sorry, if I removed something
you thought was important... Also, some editing was done to remove
the words that were in the article, but really should not be
posted to the entire public net. they are in brackets and caps
(i.e. [BAD] instead of something not to nice.) ]
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From: stafford@cs.uoregon.edu
Emphatically NO -- Apple's drives are NOT the way to go; I should know.
I just bought a IIcx && my apply-supplied Quantum 80 went [BAD]
just at the end of the warranty. I got a new drive, and payed out
hard-earned $$ to get [MYSELF] covered by Applecare, since I don't
have any faith that the new drive will last longer than the last.
If $$ is not an issue, get a CDC-Wren drive; very fast, good LONG
warranty, and a reputation for soliditity that I would have been
better off paying attention to.
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From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Apple does not manufacture its own drives. They purchase drive modules
in quantity from manufacturers such as Quantum (mostly, these days),
Rodime, Seagate, Miniscribe, and others. They write the driver/installer
software so that it will work for each of these drives, put the drives
in Apple-labelled boxes, and ship them.
[.... some stuff deleted, nothing naughty though.....]
You can buy drives that are essentially identical to those that Apple
purchases and resells, for lots less money. For example, a Quantum
40- or 80-meg drive from a reputable third-party reseller will often
cost 40-50% less than the same drive purchased through Apple, and
it will come with a better warranty and often with better format/install
software.
Brands that have earned a reputation for excellent performance and
top quality include CDC/Imprimis (the Wren Runner series for the Mac is
very good indeed, I hear) and Priam. Both of these brands will cost you
more per meg than some other brands (although probably less than Apple
charges for Quantum drives) but you'll get excellent performance and
very good reliability.
The Quantum drives that Apple uses have been suffering from some severe
reliability problems lately. Word is that Quantum has identified the
problem("stiction" due to lubricant thickening, leading to a failure of
the drive to spin up when powered on); they're upgrading their
production lines so that new drives won't have the problem, and
(according to Mac the Knife's column this week) will be releasing new
drive-controller ROMS that will upgrade old drives to avoid the
problem. Recent-production Quantum drives might be an OK bet.
I'd recommend avoiding Seagate drives... their smaller ones are fairly
slow, and I've heard that their large drives aren't very reliable.
Avoid Miniscribe like the plague, no matter what attractive price
you see! They're in a great deal of financial trouble, their quality
control has gone to hell, and they may not survive very long. Out of
6 330-meg Miniscribe drives that we received from our OEM vendor, four
died within a month.
Rodime's older drives are OK (I have a 100-meg Rodime in my Mac II;
28 milliseconds access time). Their new "Cobra" series looks quite
impressive. Rodime has also had some financial problems of late,
but it looks as if they will recover OK.
If I were about to buy a new drive for a Mac-II-class machine, I'd
save up my bucks and buy a Wren or a Swift (both CDC/Imprimis drives).
CDC has been in the disk-drive business for a LONG time (they were
making disks when I was back in college in the mid-70s).
[.... more misc. stuff deleted ....]
I've heard good things about MicroTech... they sell a whole line of
disks (both internal and external), and will freely discuss the
advantages and limitations of each of their configurations. You can
find their phone number and address in any issue of MacWorld or
MacWeek.
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From: att!ll1a!cej
My advice is *don't* by a hard drive from Apple. Some
major points:
1) Apple does *not* make hard drives. They sell other
manufacture's drives. And they have generally been selling drives
from two or three different manufacturers at a time, and changing
manufacturers over time. So other people's experience's may have
no bearing on your's.
2) Apple charges you more for the exact same drive you can
get elsewhere. (You said money wasn't the point, but I believe you
were really saying that you didn't want to pay less and get a
cheaper drive. However, I can't imagine you want to pay more to
get the same thing. [or less - see point 4])
3) *Many* of the hard drive problems that you have heard
of on the net have in fact been with "Apple" hard drives. (Not
Apple's fault since they didn't make the drives - however
just 'cause it says Apple doesn't mean it can't be defective.)
4) Apple only gives you a 90-day warranty, even on the
hard drives. Yet the manufacturer may offer a 1-year or longer
warranty on the very same drive.
5) [Unsupported personal testimony] I bought my drive for my
Mac II as an 'add-on', and I have *never* been sorry. Not for an
instant. (It was a Rodime, BTW)
If you *really* want the "Apple" drive, then my advice it
to find out what brand and model it *really* is, and by that as an
add-on.
BTW, if the drive maker's drive doesn't support "driver-level
partitioning" I wounldn't by it. You'll thank me for this advice
if you ever do decide you need to partition the drive. I've
used 'after-the-fact" disk partioners, such as SUM's, and they just
don't work right in *all* circumstances. Yep, I lost all the data
on my drive that way.
Then Rodime came to the rescue - they were one of the first
to upgrade their driver to support partitioning. (The new version
was even on mac.comp.binaries.) And to this day (2 years later)
the worst PD nightmare crash hasn't dropped a single bit from any
partition. That just *can't* be said for 'after-the-fact"
partitions.
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From: decvax!uunet.UU.NET!actnyc!jsb (The Invisible Man)
The most reliable disks you can get for the Mac are the Wren series from
Imprimis. They are resold in external cases by many many companies, and if
you want one internal you can get it from MicroNet.
In addition to being more reliable, they are generally 50-70% faster than
the Quantum ProDrives (the ones Apple and everyone else use). Remember that
typically, the transfer speed is more important than access time. The access
times for the Wrens is marginally better than the Quantums, and the transfer
time is about 66% better than the Quantums.
Alexis Rosen
temporarily at uunet!actnyc!jsb
[ Alexis,
I tried to e-mail you to inform you that I was going to use this
message in my summary, but the mail bounced. I am sorry if you did not want
this printed, but it does not seem treating, damning, or as if it could in
any way hurt anybody. so I printed it. ]
--
Mike Houle |
mdh@linus.mitre.org | 90% of a project is making mistakes
! UUCP -> decvax!linus!mdh | the other 90% is covering up those
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