jg@ukc.ac.uk (J.Grant) (03/22/89)
I have been playing with a selection of these drives recently (well, actually 3 of them) and they all have the same problem ... After turning them on, make the disk work a bit (SCSI evaluator for example) - when the test has finished just watch the drive ... after a minute or two you will here the drive stepping across the disk all by itself (the light won't be on) - then there will be a horrible clunk and this tinkling noise followed by the thump which will then repeat every 30 seconds or so - if you force the machine to access the disk, the Mac will crash ! If, however, you let the drive warm up for half an hour before you use it, all will be fine - this seems to be a heat related problem (all drives were either in their fan-cooled cases or in the open) and they all do it, repeatably. Has anyone else run across this before, I know that they have sold loads of these, but maybe not everybody uses the drive vigourously after switch-on? Comments anyone ?
LaserMan@cup.portal.com (Bob LaserMan Murrow) (03/24/89)
I have 8 of the ProDrive Q80S from Quantum. The thing you are seeing is the automatic thermal equalizing to compensate for the platter growth due to heat effects as it warms up. I have NEVER had a crash associated with it. Unless you are doing direct SWCSI calls the embedded controller should handle this without problem. I run a large Mac BBS and run the death out of my drives and have two that are repeatedly started and stopped. These are far and away the best drives I have ever owned and not one has failed todate. If you have been playing (smile) with the jumpers on the SCSI board and inadvertantly set up the drive for self testing the above may be incorrect. I actually ran one of the drives set up this way for tow weeks continiously and it worked the whole time...smile. It was noisy as H*ll and could not be reformatted but it worked. Bob Murrow SYSOP PhoeinxII and IIa