heath@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Todd Heatherton) (09/23/89)
I have a mac+ with one 800K drive (I just bought it yesterday). I am
considering another 800K drive a 20mb external. Money is a key factor
in my decision (I'm a post-doc with limited funds). Can anyone give
me any quick advice on the cheaper hard drives (specifically the
PowerDrive Seagate from Hard Drives International $349 or the UniMac
20 mb for $399 or the Cutting edge 20 mb for about $429). If there
are problems with these cheaper hard drives I will probably get the
Cutting Edge 800K drive.
Thanks in advance
--
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Todd Heatherton Department of Psychology University of Toronto
Phone: 416-978-6387 (office) Email: heath@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca
416-482-4847 (home) or heath@psych.utoronto.ca
************************************************************************c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU (Alex Lau) (09/25/89)
In article <1989Sep23.111338.1450@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> heath@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Todd Heatherton) writes: >I have a mac+ with one 800K drive (I just bought it yesterday). I am >considering another 800K drive a 20mb external. Money is a key factor >in my decision (I'm a post-doc with limited funds). Can anyone give >me any quick advice on the cheaper hard drives (specifically the >PowerDrive Seagate from Hard Drives International $349 or the UniMac >20 mb for $399 or the Cutting edge 20 mb for about $429). If there >are problems with these cheaper hard drives I will probably get the >Cutting Edge 800K drive. >Thanks in advance >Todd Heatherton Department of Psychology University of Toronto Hate to tell you this, but all the hard drives you've picked above are not very reliable. I've had personal experience with Hard Drives International, and their service for Macintosh drives is S-L-O-W. Ehman is known here on the net for their fairly good service, but their failure rate is nothing short of spectacular; about 20% of the people I've talked to who've had dealings with Ehman hard drives have had their drives fail within 6 months of purchase. Cutting Edge is basically Ehman with a different hat on; they even have the same address. UniMac is just a company that makes cases, power supplies and formatting software, and they sell that package to outside dealers including Hard Drives International. If you can swing it, save up for at least $600 or so, in order to get a Quantum 40 meg drive. Much faster, much more reliable, much quieter (in general), and a longer warranty, unless you buy it from Apple Computer, in which case you tend to get a less reliable drive with a shorter warranty. :-) --- Alex UUCP: {att,backbones}!ucbvax!franny!c8s-an INTERNET: c8s-an%franny.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu FIDONET: Alex.Lau@bmug.fidonet.org (1:161/444)
johnz@basser.oz (John Zic) (09/25/89)
In article <17627@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Alex Lau) writes: In article <1989Sep23.111338.1450@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> heath@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Todd Heatherton) writes: >>I have a mac+ with one 800K drive (I just bought it yesterday). I am >>considering another 800K drive a 20mb external. Money is a key factor >>in my decision (I'm a post-doc with limited funds). Can anyone give >>me any quick advice on the cheaper hard drives (specifically the >>PowerDrive Seagate from Hard Drives International $349 or the UniMac >>20 mb for $399 or the Cutting edge 20 mb for about $429).q If there >Hate to tell you this, but all the hard drives you've picked above >are not very reliable. I've had personal experience with Hard Drives >International, and their service for Macintosh drives is S-L-O-W. Two points. First of all, I have dealt with HDI from Australia. They provided me with excellent service on a dead drive that I received from them. I had a replacement drive, in Sydney, within a fortnight of shipping it from here. I wouldn't call that slow service! It takes about a week for Air Freight to get to the continental US. I read an awful lot of people saying "drive X" is unreliable. I take statements like those with a very large grain of salt. You never hear of people saying how *good* their particular drive is; you only hear them bitching about it when it goes bad. So, how about going on the manufacturer's claimed MTBF? Sure you can get a bad batch, but it should be covered by the manufacturer's warantee. I bought myself a bare Seagate ST125N drive, which I then put into a case with the appropriate power supply (a locally produced 40W switcher, waranteed for FIVE years) and cables. Whole thing cost me a fair bit, since the power supply was expensive ($AUS500 for the drive and $AUS210 for the supply) but I am a great believer in getting as good a power supply I can for the drive. The Seagate has 28msec access time, too. Not exactly slow, once again! And the quoted MTBF is 50K hours of operation, And HDI provide a replacement service for dead drives over a ONE YEAR PERIOD. My recommendations? Stick to HDI; buy a UniMac case and power supply, and get a bare Seagate ST125N 20Meg drive. Put them all together, and you'll be right, mate. NB that's a ST125N _NOT_ a ST225N, which are the more common ones in OEM disk drives (and have an access time of 65 msec). -- John Zic | ACSnet: johnz@cs.su.oz.AU | "He's dead, Jim ... but not as we know it!"
c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU (Alex Lau) (09/26/89)
In article <2572@basser.oz> johnz@basser.oz (John Zic) writes: > >are not very reliable. I've had personal experience with Hard Drives > >International, and their service for Macintosh drives is S-L-O-W. >Two points. >First of all, I have dealt with HDI from Australia. They provided me >with excellent service on a dead drive that I received from them. I had >a replacement drive, in Sydney, within a fortnight of shipping it from >here. I wouldn't call that slow service! It takes about a week for Air >Freight to get to the continental US. Well, how about taking one month to send me my drive when I first purchased it (and only after two dozen phone calls), and then taking two months to send me back my repaired drive after the first one died (and only after three-score phone calls)? Is that slow enough for you? I suspect their domestic service is separate from their internation service, so maybe you're right, but I'm right, too. >I read an awful lot of people saying "drive X" is unreliable. I take >statements like those with a very large grain of salt. You never hear of >people saying how *good* their particular drive is; you only hear them >bitching about it when it goes bad. So, how about going on the >manufacturer's claimed MTBF? Sure you can get a bad batch, but it should >be covered by the manufacturer's warantee. I'd rather get a good drive that's been out on the market for a while, with a *demonstrated* reliability rather than a *claimed* reliability. Besides, most of the Seagates on the market have a *claimed* MTBF of 20,000 hours (that's about 2 years of continuous use), but they don't tell you that that's *only* for continuous use. They don't shut off the drives during testing. If you turn the drive off, you could be opening yourself up to the infamous "stiction" problem, explaind in earlier postings. >My recommendations? Stick to HDI; buy a UniMac case and power supply, >and get a bare Seagate ST125N 20Meg drive. Put them all together, and >you'll be right, mate. NB that's a ST125N _NOT_ a ST225N, which are the >more common ones in OEM disk drives (and have an access time of 65 >msec). Most people have neither the aptitude nor the time to "roll their own" hard disk, John. They want to buy something that works, even if it costs them a little more. Most people would rather not have to deal with warranties, or dead drives, or customer service. The mark of an unreliable drive is if you ever need to call the company, IMHO. > John Zic | --- Alex UUCP: {att,backbones}!ucbvax!franny!c8s-an INTERNET: c8s-an%franny.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu FIDONET: Alex.Lau@bmug.fidonet.org (1:161/444)