czei@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Czeiszperger) (03/14/89)
Has anyone bought one of those LaCie/CIRRUS disk drives? The prices and specs look good: 30mb 40ms $549 42MB 25ms $649 70MB 25ms $799 80MB 12ms $999 100MB 25ms $999 140MB 15ms $1299 The strange thing about their add is they ask you to compare the features, and give a huge list of things which you really don't care about when you're buying *hardware*. They include a bunch of software like SilverSurfer, which they include as a feature of their Cirrus drives. Going down the list, it looks like they forgot to include a SCSI cable??? -- Michael S. Czeiszperger | "Build High for Happiness!" Systems Analyst | "Red Kangs are best!" The Ohio State University | 2015 Neil Ave, Columbus, OH 43210 ARPA:czei@icarus.eng.ohio-state.edu PAN:CZEI (614) 292-0161
siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (03/15/89)
In article <1702@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> czei@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Czeiszperger) writes: >Has anyone bought one of those LaCie/CIRRUS disk drives? The prices and >specs look good: I bought a 42MB and it's a good drive. And it does come with cable... --R. Rich Siegel Staff Software Developer THINK Technologies Division, Symantec Corp. Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel Phone: (617) 275-4800 x305
egg@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Ed Green) (03/15/89)
In article <1702@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> czei@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Czeiszperger) writes: >Has anyone bought one of those LaCie/CIRRUS disk drives? The prices and >specs look good: I bought the 42 mb last fall for my own use at home. Sure beats the heck out of my HyperDrive here at work. >Going down the list, it looks like they forgot to include a SCSI >cable??? I got a SCSI cable with my drive. -- Edwin G. Green AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, Illinois, USA IHP 1F-550 312-416-7187 UUCP: att!ihlpl!egg
merchant@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Peter Merchant) (03/15/89)
In article <1702@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> czei@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Czeiszperger) writes: >Has anyone bought one of those LaCie/CIRRUS disk drives? A midshipman here bought one and likes it. The drive is small (and came with a convenient carrying case) and runs quite reliably. He dropped it at one point, and it still ran. Of course, he's going to sea in three months, so we'll see how it REALLY performs, but he seems quite happy with it. >Going down the list, it looks like they forgot to include a SCSI >cable??? His included a SCSI cable. It comes out of the box, ready to use. --- "C'mon, lemme see you Peter Merchant (merchant@eleazar.UUCP) shake your tail feathers..." (Peter.G.Merchant@dartmouth.EDU)
paco@oakhill.UUCP (Paco) (03/16/89)
LaCie disks are beautiful. I have an 80M on my MacII at work... You can't
hear the machine go to disk; the only way I know about a disk access is if I
happen to notice the triangle flash up in the top left corner of the menu
bar. Even then I've got to be fast and careful not to blink... That's how
fast and quiet they run. The price is great too. My officemate has an 80M at
work and another 80M on his SE at home. Neither of us have ever had problems.
Quite unlike the Jasmine 20M I've got at home that crashes on schedule.
We haven't used SilverServer much, and the repartitioning can be a little
tricky, but I give LaCie high marks.
paco.
---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----
Macintosh Software Developer
Motorola Microprocessor Products Group
Austin, Texas
email: cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!devsys!paco
paco @ Generic BBS 201/389-8473
disclaimer: author is (ir)responsible for all statements
author-of: Menstat, CS-1 @ Stanford, MacGroup @ AT&T, emulators galore...
quote: "Killing a bush with one's hand is better than getting stoned
with two birds." - Suzanne Nathanpweiss%samu@Sun.COM (Paul Weiss - pweiss@sun.com) (03/16/89)
I've been using one of their 80 M drives for about 3 months, and it seems just fine. It uses the Quantum drive, which is fast and has a good MTBF - about 50,000 hours, if I remember, which is over 5 years. The included software is also very nice: not only the usual drivers and partitioners, but some software to share and protect volumes, printers, and (again, if I remember correctly) modems in an AppleTalk net. The box is cheap - they only do direct sales. Paul
kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) (03/17/89)
I bought a LaCie 70 meg drive shortly before Christmas. It comes with a cable, carrying case (well made), partitioning software, and it works. (Mine also came with a small package of Hershey Kisses--though that might have just been the Christmas season.) The cable is thinner than your normal SCSI cable, which is nice, but it is also non-standard. 25-pin D-connector at *both* ends, not just at the Macintosh end. I figured that cables are delicate things and I would hate to suffer without my drive for want of a cable, so I bought an extra (I think it was just $15). Both cables work fine. Compared to my old Miniscribe-based Jasmine, this 70 meg drive is wonderfully fast. On my stock Plus, it was like buying an accelerator and having a hard disk thrown in for free. I did once loose nearly everything on my disk, partly from my cleverness/stupidity (amazing how those two so often go hand-in-hand) and partly from the partitioning software not being fool proof. I decided that I needed to change the relative partition sizes (a great feature, by the way). I fired up the Silver Lining software to do the job. Turns out it doesn't want to move files around on the current system partition (seems reasonable). I said "No problem" and did a switch launch to another hard disk I had on line. Bad news. Doing a switch launch is *not* like rebooting off a different disk. I can't remember how the partitioning software died, but I know it brought nearly everything with it. The icons were still there, but everything seemed to be corrupted. Was I backed up??? Well, yes. I was missing a couple of short things I had written the day before, but I had complete copies of all the rest of my data. My applications were a different matter. I do have my original disks, and I also have copies of PD stuff. It turns out that it is a royal pain to arrange things the way they were. This was well over a month ago and my System folder still looks like a hurricane has been through there. All those icons in this big jumble. I cringe every time I look. Really must clean it up one of these days. What I miss most was some QuicKeys assignments and all those "Preferences..." I had evolved to. One more thing, the partitioning software allows you to set passwords. The problems is that it doesn't always ask for them. I have two consecutive partitions with different passwords. If I ask for the first and give the correct password, it assumes I am a good guy and will give my the second no-questions-asked. Not very secure. Yet one more thing: When programming in MacApp, if I have asked for a partition using the Cirrus Volumes DA (as opposed to auto mounting it), and then try to run a MacApp-written program which has debugging turned on, whenever I move the mouse in to the debugging window, the program crashes. Certainly I am running other INITs and stuff, but as far as I can tell it is caused by having mounted a volume manually. I have not chased it from the MacApp end which I should--might be MacApp's fault. Conclusions: 1) The LaCie drive is great, I would buy it again. 2) Always be backed up. 3) 70 meg is not as big as it sounds. Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uucp or ...!hscfvax!lloyd!kent
kathie@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM (Kathleen Huddleston) (03/17/89)
I have had a Cirrus 60Mb drive for over a year with no problems and my Mom has two others with no problems. The cases are a little lighter weight than some drives, but mechanically they seem reliable. They are fairly quiet (compared with a Dataframe). The volume partitioning software is very nice and works with other drives as well (Silver Lining). I'm using it on a CMS, also. As with all price leading companies, one worries about customer support. I've seen their offices (next to me in Tigard, OR) and although they are cramped like all start up companies, they are established.
vangelde@cisunx.UUCP (Timothy J Van) (03/17/89)
I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer is great, comes with a cable etc - seems like a generally good buy. BUT The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on - so I load up a RAM disk and turn it off. This pisses me off greatly because it takes away a lot of the benefit of having a hard drive AND LaCie reassured me before I purchased that it was quieter than other drives. The problem, by the way, is not the fan, its the drive mechanism. Also, all these high-pitched noises drift on and off (sometimes coming on and off like morse code) so one can only suspect that shitty construction is at fault. This is just one drive of course, maybe I got a bum one. But I wouldn't go around recommending them to anyone myself. Tim van Gelder (By the way, I would have returned it to see if they could do anything while it was still under warranty except that I was writing my doctoral disseration and couldnt afford to be without it.)
capslock@cup.portal.com (Allen M Crider) (03/17/89)
I'm using a LaCie 100 mb disk in a MacII. It is very, very, quiet. I truely can't hear it above the sound of the Mac's fan. It has a 28ms seek time, which makes it a little bit slower than the CMS pro80 (18ms) in our other Mac II. The LaCie costs $1,000. By the way, in defense of CMS, the 80 mb disk is made by quantum and hasn't given me any trouble. This poor drive has been used for more than a year in a Lino service bureau.
mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) (03/17/89)
In article <16825@cisunx.UUCP> vangelde@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Timothy J Van) writes: >I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer >is great, comes with a cable etc - seems like a generally good buy. > >BUT > >The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under >your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on - [..] >problem, by the way, is not the fan, its the drive mechanism. Also, all these >high-pitched noises drift on and off (sometimes coming on and off like >morse code) so one can only suspect that shitty construction is at fault. [..] >(By the way, I would have returned it to see if they could do anything >while it was still under warranty except that I was writing my doctoral >disseration and couldnt afford to be without it.) I bought a 40mb drive from them last year. The drive was moderataly quit until oct. of last year when it started exhibiting the noises you mentioned. Over christmas break I sent it back. It sounded great for a month and a half. It now makes the noise again. I am goingto take it to a local reparguy and see what they think because I cannot stand it. Bottom line: I like everything about my drive except the noise. It is now louder than a mac II. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Interrante Software Engineering Research Center mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu CIS Department, University of Florida 32611 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know." Marvin Minsky
t-jacobs@wasatch.UUCP (Tony Jacobs) (03/18/89)
In article <16825@cisunx.UUCP> vangelde@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Timothy J Van) writes: >I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer > >BUT > >The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under >your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on - stuf >high-pitched noises drift on and off (sometimes coming on and off like >morse code) so one can only suspect that shitty construction is at fault. > >Tim van Gelder The problem you describe is the spring which makes contact with the shaft on the hard disk. Some models have the problem, most don't. It can be fixed. When I called LaCie they instructed me how to do it myself. If you're a little bit mechanically inclined you can avoid sending it back to them. What it takes is bending the spring up so it doesn't contact the shaft as hard. The spring is wearing and vibrating - causing a very nasty sound indeed. The LaCie drives are very quiet and their software is the best I know of. We have had a number of drives around here for over a year now, with very few problems. -- Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * U of U * t-jacobs@ced.utah.edu
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (03/18/89)
In article <19934@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes: >In article <16825@cisunx.UUCP> vangelde@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Timothy J Van) writes: >>I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer >>is great, comes with a cable etc - seems like a generally good buy. >> >>BUT >> >>The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under >>your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on - >[..] >>problem, by the way, is not the fan, its the drive mechanism. Also, all these >>high-pitched noises drift on and off (sometimes coming on and off like >>morse code) > >I bought a 40mb drive from them last year. The drive was moderataly quiet >until oct. of last year when it started exhibiting the noises you mentioned. >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Mark Interrante Software Engineering Research Center >mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu CIS Department, University of Florida 32611 >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The problem both of these people are having with noisy drives (the high- pitched squeal, anyhow) is probably due to a loose static brush on the drive mechanism. There is some question as to whether the static brush is a necessary or useful item on drives 5 1/4" or smaller, or whether they are sometimes bothersome vestiges of what was a necessary component of larger (mini- and mainframe) hard disk units, somewhat like an appendix in a human, which just sits around until it causes trouble. Fortunately in most cases the squeal can be squelched by bending the static brush slightly; it's probably best to have someone do it who knows what s/he's doing. Unfortunately the problem can reoccur. By the way, most mfgrs of 5 1/4" hard drives still include static brushes (I don't know if this is true for 3 1/2 inchers), so the noise problem is not confined only to LaCie drives. Perhaps a hard disk jock out there can shed some light on the question as to whether small micro drives need to have a static brush or not. John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |
hellerst@husc4.UUCP (Joe Hellerstein,VMS research area,,4986600) (03/19/89)
From article <1360@wasatch.UUCP>, by t-jacobs@wasatch.UUCP (Tony Jacobs): > In article <16825@cisunx.UUCP> vangelde@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Timothy J Van) writes: >>I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer >> >>BUT >> >>The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under >>your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on - > > stuf > >>high-pitched noises drift on and off (sometimes coming on and off like >>morse code) so one can only suspect that shitty construction is at fault. >> >>Tim van Gelder > > The problem you describe is the spring which makes contact with the shaft on > the hard disk. Some models have the problem, most don't. It can be fixed. When > I called LaCie they instructed me how to do it myself. If you're a little bit > mechanically inclined you can avoid sending it back to them. What it takes is > bending the spring up so it doesn't contact the shaft as hard. The spring is > wearing and vibrating - causing a very nasty sound indeed. I had the same problem with my 30 meg La Cie drive, and their repair people told me the same thing. I bent the little spring, and it only temporarily quieted the drive down. After 20 minutes or so, it was squealing again. So I left the case unscrewed, and every 20 minutes or so I re-bent the little spring. Probably did it about 10 times. And never in a careless or forceful manner. The drive died on the 11th try or so. And I mean really died. It couldn't be reinitialized, and re-booting the Mac with the drive installed caused a Sad Mac. I sent the drive back to LaCie, and they replaced it for free, under their warranty agreement -- I say replace, because they didn't fix it at all; they sent me back the same box and fan, but a totally new drive AND controller card. This may have been coincidence, but I recommend EXTREME care in attempting this "repair." If you are under warranty, call LaCie and get their advice and the name of technician, before you try this, so that if something goes wrong, they are bound to fix it themselves. Generally, I would recommend LaCie to anyone, and my experience with their repair people couldn't have been better. They repaired the drive no questions asked, and I believe that the death of the drive was a strange fluke, not the result of shoddy construction. But if you own one of these drives and have this squealing problem, do take care. Joe Hellerstein
martyl@bucket.UUCP (Marty Lee) (03/23/89)
> I have a LaCie 20mb disk, just over a year old. Very reliable, SilverServer > is great, comes with a cable etc - seems like a generally good buy. > I have never gotten Silverserver to work right for me. For now I've given up and gone to Liaison. > BUT > > The damn thing is so noisy, at those high frequencies that really get under > your skin, that I find it virtually impossible to work with the thing on - > so I load up a RAM disk and turn it off. This pisses me off greatly because > it takes away a lot of the benefit of having a hard drive AND LaCie > reassured me before I purchased that it was quieter than other drives. The My 100 meg disk has a constant high pitch whine. It never goes away, until your ear develops a permanent frequency notch. The whine is not from the fan but from the drive. After 5 minutes of operation I packed up my drive and took it back thinking it was defective. (I live in Tigard, OR, where La Cie is.) I was also having problems with the disk not booting on power up too. When I got there one of the techs looked at my drive right away. First he said the drive must spin up to speed before the Mac II is turned on. I said it let it spin up for 1 minute. Next he took the box apart and measured the +12 supply. It was at 11.6 volt so he set it to 11.8 volts. Don't ask me why, he just told me it was suppose to be there. Now the drive booted every time after a 20 sec spin up interval. BUT WITH THE COVERS OFF THE WHINE WAS EVEN LOUDER NOW!! NOW THE WHINE HURT MY EARS AT A 3 FOOT DISTANCE! I asked the tech about the whine and he said ALL of the 100 megs are that way. He suggested if I wanted a quiet drive get the 80 meg. He said I could exchange with in 30 days of purchase, just bring in the box and all of the stuff inside. After some thought I decided to KEEP the 100 meg but, find a longer SCSI cord to locate the drive out of earshot. I'm still experimenting but the cheap 25 conductor RS-232 cables don't work. The nicer (much more $$'s) cords with the shielding seem to work much better. Any suggestions for a 3 footer? In summary the 100 meg drive has a whine that drive me crazy. The drive is FAST, real FAST. When the drive does a seek it is VERY QUIET. In fact you cannot tell it is doing a seek. (A change from the Apple 40 meg) I've given up on SilverServer. SilverLining works great though!! The technical service is great if your local, just walk in. I like the nifty carrying case. The SCSI cord is too short. (Just long enough to set it beside the monitor of a Mac II.) I would buy one again if I could find a longer, 3 foot, cord. Marty Lee teksce / \ tektronix!reed! omen !bucket!martyl (Marty Lee) \ / percival
kathie@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM (Kathleen Huddleston) (03/24/89)
My La Cie drive and also my Dataframe had noise problems (high pitched squeaking, squeeling). It's caused by a tag that is supposed to float just over the spindle area of the disk, but over time starts to rub. Unendurable! I was able to fix it myself with detailed instructions from the LaCie tech support person (and a lot of patience). It involves taking the drive apart, then bending this tag up and completely out of the way of the spindle area. It was a bit scary and I would definitely recommend a back up before doing anything like this (I didn't lose any data). If you can take it to a technician who has taken hard drives apart before, they should be able to do it. It's worth it. Mine hasn't squeaked in over a year. I DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU DO THIS YOURSELF unless you've got lots of technical experience.
gtww2z9z@umiami.miami.edu (Jason Gross) (03/24/89)
About two months ago, I purchased La Cie's 30 MB drive and I have been
astoundingly pleased with it. It's very quiet and very fast. The only time I
hear it is when in comes up to speed, otherwise my SE's fan drowns out the
drive :-)!
Also, I had a couple of questions regarding the SilverLining software, and the
La Cie tech people we're very cooperative and helpful. It's companies like
these that refreshed my faith in good ol' capitialism!
Have a nice day!
--
Jason Gross Comp Sci Ugrad University of Miami Class of '91 (?)
===========================================================================
Not my damn planet | At the tone, leave your reply and Visa card number at
monkey-boy, got it? | Internet: gtww2z9z@umiami.miami.edu
- J. Bigboote | Bitnet: gtww2z9z@umiami
===========================================================================
** Disclaimer: Disclaimer? Why, I never claimed 'er in the first place! **ggiergiel@vmsa.cf.uci.edu (03/25/89)
In article <536@umiami.miami.edu>, gtww2z9z@umiami.miami.edu (Jason Gross) writes... >About two months ago, I purchased La Cie's 30 MB drive and I have been >astoundingly pleased with it. It's very quiet and very fast. The only time I >hear it is when in comes up to speed, otherwise my SE's fan drowns out the Lets present here more balanced point of view. I have owned one for more than one year. The drive is fast, but in no time at all become unbearably loud. The case is nicely designed, but very poorly made by some cheapo molding outfit. The drive has not failed yet despite almost constant usage. The software is fine but I would like it to auto- matticaly mount all partitions with the same password after instead of prompting for each one of them. On balance the drive can be recommended, but if I were to buy one again I would go with a higher capacity one. J.Giergiel.
martyl@bucket.UUCP (Marty Lee) (03/25/89)
In article <11176@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM>, kathie@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM (Kathleen Huddleston) writes: > My La Cie drive and also my Dataframe had noise problems (high > pitched squeaking, squeeling). It's caused by a tag that is > with detailed instructions from the LaCie tech support person (and > a lot of patience). It involves taking the drive apart, then > bending this tag up and completely out of the way of the spindle > area. I just got a 100 meg unit from LaCie and it REALLY whines. But the disk unit is completely sealed and there is no access to the spindle. The drive is made by "Connor". Any suggestions on how to eliminate the whine? Also my 100 meg drive refuses to be the boot drive. In fact it won't mount from a cold start. If I do a restart then the drive mounts with the defined partitions I made. On a cold start if I use SilverLining to mount the drive it says no SCSI drivers were installed or trys to reformat the drive. Any suggestions? Is this normal? teksce / \ tektronix!reed! omen !bucket!martyl (Marty Lee) \ / percival
paulm@nikhefk.UUCP (Paul Molenaar) (03/25/89)
[Some ppl having trouble getting SilverServer to run]
In article <536@umiami.miami.edu> gtww2z9z@umiami.miami.edu (Jason Gross) writes:
#Also, I had a couple of questions regarding the SilverLining software, and the
#La Cie tech people we're very cooperative and helpful. It's companies like
#these that refreshed my faith in good ol' capitialism!
#
#Jason Gross Comp Sci Ugrad University of Miami Class of '91 (?)
We bought SilverServer (and got SilverLining thrown in on the package)
and we've grown to like the package a lot. Our machines are now heavily
internetworked, using Tops, Timbuktu and SilverServer at the same
time.
We bought the SilverServer package to share one modem on the network and
that works very well indeed. Installation took some time (especially because
I didn't read the manual at first) and I don't think it's all that easy
to use for novice users but we're quite happy. Shame though that the
salesperson didn't mention we'd need one copy of SilverServer for every
Mac on the network... Conclusion: very useful software!
Paul Molenaar
"Just checking the walls"
- Basil Fawlty -
--
Paul Molenaar
"Just checking the walls"
- Basil Fawlty -mpease@cvedc.UUCP (Mark Pease) (03/28/89)
In article <11176@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM> kathie@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM (Kathleen Huddleston) writes: >My La Cie drive and also my Dataframe had noise problems (high >pitched squeaking, squeeling). It's caused by a tag that is >supposed to float just over the spindle area of the disk, but >over time starts to rub. [...] I was able to fix it myself >[...] It involves taking the drive apart, then >bending this tag up and completely out of the way of the spindle >area. [...] I was under the impression that the "tag" was there to ground out any static buildup (Maybe they should have used some "Bounce" sheets :-) If this is true, bending the tag away from the spindle could cause the spinning disk to develop a large static charge that could "arc" over to some place in the disk (like maybe the head assembley ?-). In any case, the arc could cause some lose of data on the disk. I have noted, on drives that have become squeaky, that the pad on the end of the tab has become indented and polished. I have taken a -metel- nail file and ruffened the the pad to remove the polish. This operation has stoped the squeak on every drive I have tried it on (All of one.) I am not recomeneding this procedure. Nor is Prime/Compuervision. Please don't hold me responsible if you try it. My recomendition is to contact La Cie and talk to the service people. -- Mark Pease ..tektronix.csnet!ogccse.uucp!cvedc!mpease Prime Computer, Inc. ..sun.arpa!cvbnet.uucp!cvedc!mpease 14952 N.W. Greenbrier Pkway Beaverton, Oregon 97006 (503)645-2410
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (03/30/89)
In article <671@marion.cvedc.UUCP> mpease@cvedc.UUCP (Mark Pease) writes: (citation deleted) > >I was under the impression that the "tag" was there to ground out any static >buildup (Maybe they should have used some "Bounce" sheets :-) If this is true, >bending the tag away from the spindle could cause the spinning disk to develop >a large static charge that could "arc" over to some place in the disk (like >maybe the head assembley ?-). In any case, the arc could cause some lose of >data on the disk. > (more stuff deleted) > >-- >Mark Pease ..tektronix.csnet!ogccse.uucp!cvedc!mpease What I've heard is that the static brush is more of a vestige (on 5.25" drives and smaller) than a necessary component. At one time, on the hard disks that had the diameter of hula hoops, it was crucial to damp the static that would accumulate with use, else all kinds of spectacular but annoying events would occur. An engineer told me that the amount of static which is generated by a well-built small hard disk is negligible to none, and that the brush is probably more trouble than it's worth (like the human appendix). John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |