donch@tekirl.UUCP (10/01/87)
I recently posted an article outlining my agony and thrashing about regarding hard disk choices. Well, I made a choice and am quite happy with it to date. That's what this article is about. Many people responded to my article with helpful comments. I must now admit to a pre-purchase bias toward the Cirrus 30HD formerly made by Kamerman Labs. The bias was due to hands-on experience with a Cirrus 20HD here at work and appreciating the software and the overall package. Also, the software was written by a local person who is highly respected by everyone I've talked to. Unfortunately, Kamerman Labs was the victim of an article in MacWorld which stated that they had gone Chapter 11 and died. The Chapter 11 part was true as far as it went, and was with respect to the PC side of Kamerman's business. When that article was published, their healthy sales volume dropped essentially to zero. Then they died. It is incredibly ironic that an ad for the Cirrus line was just a few pages away from the article that announced its death. Anyway, the Cirrus line was taken over by another company called LaCie Ltd. I went to the factory and talked to the people there about my concerns with the future of the product (i.e. their company) and service should I have any problems. I left feeling that I had been given an extremely candid and honest appraisal of their current and future business and that it was healthy. The software is called Silver Lining, written by Roger Bates. It allows you to partition the disk into Volumes which you can size and manipulate. A desk accessory lists the volumes and allows the user to select which ones to mount. It is possible to password-protect volumes so that confidential files can be kept that way. Silver Lining also has disk test and formatting capability. There are also options for configuring the drivers, depending on how you want to use your drive (I'm getting into things I don't understand here, so I won't try to elaborate.) I was told at the factory that it is also possible to re'size the Volumes once they are created without destroying data but I haven't tried that yet. My only complaint with this product is the manual (the one I received was for an older version of the software and doesn't discuss some of the new features; the new manual is due back from the printers "any day now".) It doesn't describe procedures and features with enough completeness to eliminate my confusion. I would not call it "user friendly". However, once the hard disk is set up, there's no need for the manual and the drive couldn't be easier to use. This model has a cooling fan, run at half-speed to keep noise down, but still is a bit loud overall. I paid $699 for 31 Megs. It appears to be a fine product, particularly combined with the software package, Silver Lining. I don't hesitate to recommend it. By the way, I'd say loudness is comparable to a Dataframe XP20, the only other hard disk I've used. For anyone interested, LaCie's phone number is (503) 684-0143. They are located in Tigard, Oregon, just southwest of Portland. There is no business or other relationship between LaCie Ltd. and myself other than that of my being a satisfied customer. My opinions are my own and that $699 is now theirs. Don Chitwood Tektronix, Inc.