jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) (07/29/89)
I'm think9ng about looking into one of those ~45Meg removable nedia "hard" drives. I was wondering if anyone has experience or heard anything about them. They seem liake a great solution to backup/second HD problem. Any comments? Also, access time looks pretty good on the Mass Micro one. About 23ms if memory serves. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey A. Sullivan | Senior Systems Programmer jas@venera.isi.edu | Information Sciences Institute jas@isi.edu DELPHI: JSULLIVAN | University of Southern California
gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) (07/29/89)
In article <9095@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes: >I'm think9ng about looking into one of those ~45Meg removable nedia >"hard" drives. I was wondering if anyone has experience or heard >anything about them. They seem liake a great solution to >backup/second HD problem. > >Any comments? Also, access time looks pretty good on the Mass Micro >one. About 23ms if memory serves. ALL of the removable cartridge hard drives have the same acces times: 25 ms. That's because all of them are made by the same company, Syquest. That means, you can just about interchange cartridges between different makers. They're essentially all the same, but the difference lies in the formatting software and utilities (i.e., the goodies) the manufacturers throw in. For example, Mass Micro throws in a whole bunch of stuff that makes it highly attractive. In contrast, Microtech markets a device that only has X-Trees and DS backup, neither of which I'm impressed with. However, they sell their drives for about $500-800 less, more if you have an amenable dealer (mine sold me a Microtech for $899)(This was at THE MAC STORE in Seattle, 206/447-9611; they claim they do mail order. All I know is that I'm pretty satisfied so far with my drive). I'm using mine as a primary storage device currently. This is working out fairly well for the time being, though I haven't had it for too long. THey're are definitely ideal as a second or backup HD, and my experience seems to say that they don't do too badly as a primary. By the way, I've heard that the PLI turbo cache (which PLI sells separately) can lower access times down to 12 ms. I'm not sure how much to believe the time, but I can believe that the PLI software can speed up the drive even more. -- Roger Tang Rest Home for Ex-Asian American Radical Pinko Commie Punks gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu
jnh@ecemwl.ncsu.edu (Joseph N. Hall) (07/29/89)
In article <9095@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes: >I'm think9ng about looking into one of those ~45Meg removable nedia >"hard" drives. I was wondering if anyone has experience or heard >anything about them. They seem liake a great solution to >backup/second HD problem. > >Any comments? Also, access time looks pretty good on the Mass Micro >one. About 23ms if memory serves. > The guts of 44Mb cartridge drives are ALL made by Syquest, and are packaged and remarketed by Peripheral Land, Mass Micro, LaCie, etc. A recent issue of MacWorld compared removable storage technology. Actually, I believe that there is now a 45Mb Bernoulli Box from IOMega, which is a different technology (using a flexible disk instead of a hard disk, but the same general end result), so "45 Mb removable" may not always mean Syquest in the future. Prices range from $1000 to $2000 for single-drive units, and two-drive units are around $2000. Any difference in performance will result mostly from software, and believe me, this WILL make a difference. Nominal access times for these boxes are 25ms, i.e., faster than the Apple hard disks, slower than the 15ms speed demons available from other vendors. Cartridges are about $100-$120; if you pay more you're being taken. Try MacWarehouse, MacConnection, MacProducts, etc. In my opinion if you pay $1800 or $2000 for a single-drive removable when you can get something that works the same (or better) from LaCie (for example) for about $1000, you're also being taken, but then again a particular style of box might be worth $800 to you ... A two-drive unit is a lot of fun if you can afford it. I used a similar 20Mb dual Bernoulli box once ... it was as fast as my existing hard disk (sometimes faster) and backups were ... well, quick. Check the Macworld article for details and a comparison with the other removable high-capacity storage media. v v sssss|| joseph hall || 4116 Brewster Drive v v s s || jnh@ecemwl.ncsu.edu (Internet) || Raleigh, NC 27606 v sss || SP Software/CAD Tool Developer, Mac Hacker and Keyboardist -----------|| Disclaimer: NCSU may not share my views, but is welcome to.
amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) (07/29/89)
In article <9095@venera.isi.edu>, jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes: > I'm think9ng about looking into one of those ~45Meg removable nedia > "hard" drives. I was wondering if anyone has experience or heard > anything about them. Almost all of them use the same actual drive mechanism (made by SyQuest), and it seems to be quite sturdy. We love our PLI 40MB removeables... -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- amanda@intercon.uu.net | ...!uunet!intercon!amanda
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (07/29/89)
The 25ms 44MB removable platter systems currently being marketed by
many OEMs (Mass Micro, MicroNet, etc.) all use the same SyQuest mechanism
as the basis for the drives. These DO make great backup drives. There ARE
some caveats:
1. There are reports starting to surface that these units are not
quite so reliable when used in continuous duty, e.g. as a primary
drive.
2. The media should be removed when not in use. Especially in a
power-off condition, dust can enter into and settle on the platter
much more readily than if it is stored in its plastic case.
Those warning notwithstanding, the drives are excellent. They represent
my current backup medium of choice for fixed disks < 200MB.
--scott
--
Scott Truesdelltruesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (07/29/89)
gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) writes: > I'm using mine as a primary storage device currently. This is working >out fairly well for the time being, though I haven't had it for too long. >THey're are definitely ideal as a second or backup HD, and my experience >seems to say that they don't do too badly as a primary. Reports are starting to surface on CompuServe and elsewhere about the inadvisability of using the SyQuests as a primary drive. It appears that they really aren't designed for the extended duty-cycle of a primary drive and the SyQuest mechanism itself can fail prematurely. > By the way, I've heard that the PLI turbo cache (which PLI sells >separately) can lower access times down to 12 ms. I'm not sure how much >to believe the time, but I can believe that the PLI software can speed up >the drive even more. I am sceptical of most disk caching schemes when used as an advertising ploy to pull down the "effective access times". At best, a disk caching scheme can be optimized for a few specific file sizes. I like using SCSI Evaluator for comparing disk performance because it measures averaged sustained throughput of various sized files. The "ringers" really stand out on the graphic display. Under some caching schemes, throughput actually decreases with cache enabled except for a sharp peak at certain file sizes. I'm more interested in a nice flat curve of predictable straight-line performance. --scott -- Scott Truesdell
t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) (07/29/89)
A couple of small points: The Iomega drives only come in pairs. The Iomega cartridges cost about 1/3 the others. (This can really add up) The best price I've seen is Ehmans @ $850 (with 1 cartridge), the next best price is LaCie's @ $999 (without cartridge). (We ordered an Ehman but haven't received it yet) There is one other verdor who uses Bernoulli technology, Bering. A friend has one and has had cartridge reliability problems. Someone here at the U has an Iomega and has had no problems and seems to like it. -- Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * UofU * t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu
louis@asterix.drev.dnd.ca (Louis Demers) (07/30/89)
In article <3000@blake.acs.washington.edu>, gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) writes: > In article <9095@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes: > >I'm think9ng about looking into one of those ~45Meg removable nedia > >"hard" drives. I was wondering if anyone has experience or heard > >anything about them. They seem liake a great solution to > >backup/second HD problem. > > > >Any comments? Also, access time looks pretty good on the Mass Micro > >one. About 23ms if memory serves. > > ALL of the removable cartridge hard drives have the same acces > times: 25 ms. That's because all of them are made by the same company, > Syquest. ...[cut]... > They're essentially all the same, but the difference lies in the > formatting software and utilities (i.e., the goodies) the manufacturers > throw in. For example, Mass Micro throws in a whole bunch of stuff that > makes it highly attractive. And that means that you can't use the cartriges to exchange data between owners of different drives. If you settle on on manufacturer, you should stick with that one. On way to get out of this impass would be to find a driver/installer that would work on both brands of drives. > ... For example, Mass Micro throws in a whole bunch of stuff that > makes it highly attractive. Hummm, what stuff ? All I got from mine was the utility to format and partition the drive. I may have old versions, but their formatter partitions the disk the old fashion way instead of the way Apple recommends since the introduction of A/UX, which Mass Micro doesn't support. I tried using my Mass Micro and indeed, A/UX doen't want have anything to do with it. > I'm using mine as a primary storage device currently. This is working > out fairly well for the time being, though I haven't had it for too long. > THey're are definitely ideal as a second or backup HD, and my experience > seems to say that they don't do too badly as a primary. Except, as has happened to me the other day, my Mac crashed while a cartridge was inserted and I can't read it anymore, I can't even format it ! A call to Syquest revealed that it was probably the maintenance tracks that were zapped. Because the drive detects the error immediately after inserting the cartridge and refuses to to read ANYTHING from it, programs like Mac ZAP and Symantec Utilities cannot restore anything. This experience left me with some hesitations about using them for my "precious" backups. Overall, we still like them. Their speed is great. A/UX support sure would be nice ! Louis ****************************************************************************** * Louis Demers * Defence Research Establishment Valcartier * * office = (418) 844-4424 * Electro-Optics Division * * lab = (418) 844-4265 * P.O. Box 8800 * * bed = (418) 839-9266 * 2459 PIE XI Blvd. * * louis@asterix.drev.dnd.ca * Courcelette, Quebec * * demers@ncs.dnd.ca * CANADA, G0A 1R0 * ******************************************************************************
gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) (07/30/89)
In article <20216@paris.ics.uci.edu> truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) writes: >gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) writes: > >> I'm using mine as a primary storage device currently. This is working >>out fairly well for the time being, though I haven't had it for too long. >>THey're are definitely ideal as a second or backup HD, and my experience >>seems to say that they don't do too badly as a primary. > >Reports are starting to surface on CompuServe and elsewhere about the >inadvisability of using the SyQuests as a primary drive. It appears >that they really aren't designed for the extended duty-cycle of a >primary drive and the SyQuest mechanism itself can fail prematurely. Let's hear some more about these reports. It's the first I've heard about these..... -- Roger Tang Rest Home for Ex-Asian American Radical Pinko Commie Punks gwangung@blake.acs.washington.edu
kmarko@hpdml93.HP.COM (Kurt Marko) (07/31/89)
/ hpdml93:comp.sys.mac / t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) / 8:22 am Jul 29, 1989 /
Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * UofU * t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu
writes:
: A couple of small points:
:
:The Iomega drives only come in pairs.
One smaller point...
The new 44MB Iomega drive is available as a single drive unit; although
the it comes in the same chassis as the dual drive model. Iomega offers
an internal drive mechanism separately should you wish to upgrade to
a dual-drive setup at a later date.
By the way...I've had my 44MB Bernoulli for about a week and have been
very pleased with it so far. It seems pretty responsive and is very
convenient to use (i.e. it acts just like a large, fast floppy).
Kurt Marko
H-P Boise R&D Lab
kmarko@hpdml93.hp.comhpoppe@bierstadt.ucar.edu (Herb Poppe) (07/31/89)
While we are on the subject of removable media... Several years ago a start-up called Brier Technology announced that they were developing a new drive technology that utilized a 3 1/2" 20 megabyte floppy. The media used the same hard plastic shell as a "regular" floppy, but the enclosed media was different. If I recall it incorporated pre-written servo tracks. Since then Brier's name pops up every once in awhile but it has been some time since I've heard about them. Are they still in business? Did they ever bring their drive to market? Did any of the Mac OEM's incorporate it in a product? It seems to me that one of the attractive aspects to this drive was the potential for low-cost media relative to the SyQuest and Bernoulli cartridges. Herb Poppe NCAR INTERNET: hpoppe@ncar.ucar.edu (303) 497-1296 P.O. Box 3000 CSNET: hpoppe@ncar.CSNET Boulder, CO 80307 UUCP: hpoppe@ncar.UUCP
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (08/01/89)
louis@asterix.drev.dnd.ca (Louis Demers) writes: >> They're essentially all the same, but the difference lies in the >> formatting software and utilities (i.e., the goodies) the manufacturers >> throw in. For example, Mass Micro throws in a whole bunch of stuff that >> makes it highly attractive. > And that means that you can't use the cartriges to exchange data >between owners of different drives. If you settle on on manufacturer, >you should stick with that one. On way to get out of this impass >would be to find a driver/installer that would work on both brands >of drives. I have detected no difference when using cartridges which have been formatted in different OEM'd SyQuests with different drivers. I have exchanged between several different OEM's units. Each cartridge has performed according to which driver was loaded into the Mac. --scott -- Scott Truesdell
v6dy@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (08/01/89)
We have a PLI 40 Meg removable cartridge drives in our library that seems to crash every 3 or 4 months. It is used to train people in various applications(Word 4.0, PageMaker 3.01, Excel 1.5, and Hypercard) using pre-prepared tutorials such as LearnWord and Excellerate. The drive is on for about 9 hours daily, and the machine is in used an average of 4 hours a day. This drive has been nothing but a headache. Sure, it is REALLY fast compared to the Apple HD20 SC in my SE, but it seems to die under regular use. The problems range from mysterious loss of the drives ability to boot the Mac + it is hooked up to, to a total failure of the drive to be read from or written on. Sometimes reinstalling the driver saves the drive, but usually when it is worse than that we just pull out a new cartridge(we don't pay for them, Cornell does), and rebuild the whole drive from floppies. Will Middelaer v6dy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu :--Internet v6dy@crnlvax5 :--Bitnet The opinions expressed in this article are my own, and in no way should be thought of as those of CIT(Heck, they don't pay me enough to make official opinions!)
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (08/03/89)
I've not had problems exchanging data between cartridges formatted with PLI, FWB, and Mass Micro software. There are two situations: 1. You want to copy data between the cartridge and your hard disk ( non-removable ). The cartridge is a bootable cartridge. 2. Like case 1, except that the cartridge is not bootable. 3. You want to copy data between two cartridges formatted by different vendors' software. Case 1 is the simplest. Just boot with that cartridge in the drive. That will load the driver that was put on the cartridge when it was formatted, which we hope knows how to deal with that cartridge. It does not matter that a different vendor repackaged the SyQuest drive. The're all the same to the software. Case 2 might depend on who formatted the cartridge. Some of the above mentioned formatters will place a driver on any cartridge they format. Actually, I think all of them do, but I wouldn't swear to it. If the formatter does place a driver on the cartridge, then it can be handled like case 1. The only thing I can think of that might cause a problem here is that there is probably an INIT resource hanging around in your System Folder that was supplied by the drive vendor. The purpose of this INIT is to make sure that there is a removable driver loaded if the disk in the drive contains no driver ( or if there is no disk ). However, the INIT should be checking first and if it sees that there already is a driver, it should not load another one. If it does not do this check, however, you can remove that INIT from your system folder and try again. Case 3 is the most likely to cause problems. From observation, I have determined that cartridges from the three vendors listed above will, if formatted with one partition, contain a standard Apple partition map, readable by all the others. They will work fine. If you have multiple partitions, they should still work ( FWB, for example, seems to read both old and new format partition maps and respond correctly, even though their formatter program will not create cartridges this way ). The problem occurs when there are password protected partitions. Either PLI or Mass Micro ( I forget which ) has a password protection scheme. When I tried making a cartridge with N partitions, it made a partition map that contained one standard Apple partition, and N-1 with a vendor specific format. These N-1 could be password protected. The other two drivers could handle the first partition but ignored the other. The solution in this case is to boot with the cartridge containing the protected partitions in the drive so that it's driver will be used. Summary: In most cases, data exchange is no real problem. Just pop out your cartridge and pop in the foreign cartridge. It will probably work! Tim Smith ps: If you though disk swapping with floppies was a pain, just try copying a file from one cartridge to another!
ollef@duvan.nada.kth.se (Olle Furberg) (08/04/89)
In article <20986@cup.portal.com> ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) writes: > >ps: If you though disk swapping with floppies was a pain, just try >copying a file from one cartridge to another! I don't quite understand: is it possible to have several disks mounted, but only one disk station (diskdriver)? All (software) drivers I've seen was rather stupid: you have to mount the disk manually through a cdev or DA each time you change disk. What sort of software is awailable for those drives? /Olle
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (08/05/89)
ollef@duvan.nada.kth.se (Olle Furberg) writes: > I don't quite understand: is it possible to have several disks mounted, but >only one disk station (diskdriver)? Not possible with the drivers I've seen. A given platter is either mounted or not mounted. > All (software) drivers I've seen was rather stupid: you have to mount the > disk manually through a cdev or DA each time you change disk. > What sort of software is awailable for those drives? Bill Steinberg's FKey "MountEm" is probably the handiest way to mount, well, any SCSI device. Unmounts, too. I know it's available on Compu$erve. The drivers for MicroNet's SyQuest implementation will automount. The Mac must be booted, not necessarily from the cartridge, but with a cart on line, for the driver software to be loaded into memory. After that, the carts may be unmounted in the normal manner (drag to trash) and new carts, after spinning up to speed, will auto-mount. Goo'bye ev'rybody... See ya'll at MacWorld Expo! --scott -- Scott Truesdell
jg2f+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jude Anand George) (08/08/89)
> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac: 3-Aug-89 Re: Removable "HD"s -- are > .. Olle Furberg@duvan.nada. (510) > In article <20986@cup.portal.com> ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) writes: > > > >ps: If you though disk swapping with floppies was a pain, just try > >copying a file from one cartridge to another! > I don't quite understand: is it possible to have several disks mounted, > but > only one disk station (diskdriver)? > All (software) drivers I've seen was rather stupid: you have to mount > the > disk manually through a cdev or DA each time you change disk. > What sort of software is awailable for those drives? Some companies like MicroNet do use this scheme. The Microtech driver does not use a DA or a cdev, however; just insert a disk and it mounts. How? They use an INIT which polls the drive every so often to see if a disk has been inserted. (This may sound brain-damaged, but it's exactly how the standard floppy driver works, too.) Unfortunately, this INIT is currently incompatible with Desktop Manager, so you'd have to do without the latter if you want to use the drive. I called Microtech tech support and they said a fix is in the works. Better be, since Desktop Manager is standard with System 7.0... Jude George jg2f+@andrew.cmu.edu
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (08/12/89)
With proper software, a SyQuest drive should act like a large fast floppy. You should be able to eject a cartridge, which will dim the icon on the desktop. You should get the "Please insert disk so-and-so" dialog if you try to access that disk while ejected. In particular, you should be able to copy files from one cartridge to another, just like you would copy from one floppy to another on a single drive floppy system. The vendor of the drive should provide an INIT file ( or a CDEV) that you can place in the System folder of your non-removable hard drive. The INIT should load the SyQuest driver if there was no cartridge in the drive. You should NOT have to have a cartridge in the drive. If a vendor of SysQuest drives does not provide the above, go buy from another vendor. The first is not doing an adequate job of providing software. Besides SyQuest drives, vendors should make their erasable optical drives work this way also. Tim Smith
arie@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Arie Covrigaru) (08/13/89)
I am interested to know peoples experience with removable drives in a network environment. Is it possible to have a removable drive as a second AppleShare volume? Is it possible to use it as a backup unit, where everybody on the network can copy files without connecting it directly to their Macs? What other limitations exist compare to a conventional HD? Thanks for your comments. ============================================================================= Arie Covrigaru Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory, University of Michigan =============================================================================