Perret@SYSTEM-M.PHX.BULL.COM (Pierre Perret) (05/03/90)
[in digest V90 #23, D. Barker asks for experience about Perstor disk
controllers. There has already been a similar request about a month ago,
to which I responded by mail. Seeing that there is now more than one
person interested in the subject, I decided to send this reply to the
news group]
Well, I ordered a PS180-16F controller (i.e. the Perstor controller for
16 bit machines) from Hard Drives International in Tempe, Az.
With tax, it came to roughly $265 (I am in Arizona).
I installed the thing 3 months ago, replacing my WD1002or3-whatever by it.
First impression: the board's workmanship is fine. There are a few
jumpers, but you do not need to play with them unless your hardware
config is real weird. The board comes with a booklet (installation
instructions) and a 360K diskette containing the setup and formatting
software.
Even though I did not encounter any real difficulties for the installation,
I think the documentation provided is a bit light. For instance, there was
a connector for the disk-in-use light, but the booklet did not mention
it (it worked anyway). Another thing: my floppy cable had a plastic pin
inserted in one hole that I had to remove since the Perstor board,
unlike the Western Digital, had a fully populated connector. There was
no mention, in the documentation, of that possibility. There was no list
of compatible drives in the booklet, but the ST251 was cited here and
there...
On the other hand, I discovered later (in the NOTES.BAT file on the
diskette) that there was a Perstor BBS (in Scottsdale, Az) where I found
a lot more information (see below).
The installation went smoothly. Basically, you tell your computer's
SETUP program that there is no disk drive attached and then use the
provided ATFSETUP utility to re-establish the truth. The ATFLFMT utility
then low-level formats your drive, automatically determining the
optimal interleave for you. After that, you use the DOS (3.2 in my case)
and whatever partitionning software you've got to do the rest. Pretty
straightforward. No drivers needed in config.sys (except maybe if your 1st
floppy is a 360K one, but I did not look further into that).
And it works! My old ST251 now has a 74MB formatted capacity. I ran
Spinrite on it using medium depth patterns and it went along fine
(although there seems to be a tiny bug in the user-interface for
interleave modification: the "optimal interleave" selection bar ends up
out of place). Spinrite tells you the encoding is "ERLL". It obviously
uses a different pattern set than the MFM one because testing a 32MB
partition at maximum depth requires 28 hours (that's why I haven't done
it yet!), instead of the 6 or so hours (from memory) with MFM.
Interesting side-effect: my drive has three bad tracks listed
by the manufacturer. In MFM, these tracks had been recovered and
returned to active use by Spinrite. They are now definitely seen as bad
(obviously ERLL is more demanding).
As far as performance is concerned, the optimal interleave I had with
the Western Digital was 2:1 which yielded about 240MB/s. I still have a
2:1 interleave, but it now gives me a nice 450MB/s (on a AST/286, 10MHz,
zero wait state).
One noticeable difference with the previous controller is the recalibration
attempt that can be heard after a reset. It adds a few seconds to the whole
boot process. Also, the controller attempts to recalibrate the positionner
when some errors are encountered. The drawback is that, multiplying the
corresponding delay (a few seconds) by controller-initiated retrys and
software ones, it end up taking some 10 minutes to skip over a bad track while
running SpinRite or doing a Format! But I don't do that very often, so I can
live with it.
I tried their BBS (it's 602-894-4605). there is a lot of interesting
information there. In particular, they have a technical document that
gives a list of compatible drives. I have appended that list and their
marketing "data sheet" to this message...
A last note: in the drive list, the capacity values are for unformatted
media ones (substract at least 5% for formatted medium capacity) and the
original capacity for RLL-compatible drives is given for MFM format (thus
lower than what is shown in mail-order adds: for instance, the ST251 and
ST277 have the same 42.8MB in MFM, but the ST277 goes to 65MB or so in
RLL).
Disclaimer:
I am in no way related to Perstor Systems Inc. Just a very satisfied
customer (so far), that's all.
(the following information is reproduced from files available on the
Perstor BBS (602) 894-4605)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
PERSTOR 200 SERIES 16F CONTROLLERS
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Perstor Systems, Inc. is an emerging leaded in the development
and marketing of high technology information storage controllers.
Using its proprietary Advanced Data Recording Technology (ADRT).
Perstor has developed a hard disk controller line that gives ESDI
performance and capacity to ST506/412 Winchester hard disks.
The Model PS180-16F and Model PS180-16FN Controllers are part of
Perstor's ADRT product line. These floppy/hard disk controllers
are intended for use in any 16 bit expansion slot of an 80286 or
80386 microcomputer. Most IBM AT's and clones with processor
speeds up to 25 mhz are compatible.
The PS180-16F and PS180-16FN include dual RAM allowing high
speed, 0 wait state transfer and an on-board BIOS supporting over
60 different hard disk drive types. Each controller supports
two hard disks and two floppy disks. Compatible floppy drives
include 360K, 720K, 1.2MB, and 1.44MB with either 5 1/4 inch or 3
1/2 inch form factors. Both models feature a 16 bit bi-
directional host interface and are CMOS, port address, and
register set compatible with the IBM AT controller.
The PS180-16F increases the capacity of new or existing hard
disks by 90%, whether MFM or RLL with oxide or plated media.
This model operates at 9 megabits per second and allocates 31
sectors per track. Because the PS180-16F is compatible with a
wide range of hard disks, it is suited for OEMs and systems
integrators offering a variety of hard disk products.
The PS180-16FN controller, like the 16F board, increases
capacity by 90%, but it also includes a special design for use in
multi-user systems requiring high capacity and performnce. We
have successfully tested Novell Advanced Netware 286 version 2.1+
and SCO Xenix version 2.2+ for compatibility.
OTHER FEATURES
- Variable interleave capability
- On-board drive light connector
- RLL 2,7 technology
- 2.2 to 5.5 megabit per second data write operation
- 56 bit error checking and correction
- Concurrent operations on one hard disk and one floppy disk
- 512-byte sectors on fixed disk function
- Multiple sector operations across track and cylinder boundaries
- On-board diagnostic tests
- Automatic restore and re-seek on all seek errors
- Automatic formatting
- DMA transfer capability
- Unlimited tracks on floppy disks
SPECIFICATIONS
PHYSICAL
Length 13.1 in. (33.27cm)
Length w/bracket 13.3 in. (33.78cm)
Width 4.50 in. (11.43cm)
Weight 11 oz. (311gm)
RELIABILITY
MTBF 25,000POH
PM None
MTTR 30 minutes
Component Design Life 5 years
AMBIENT TEMPERATURE
Operating 50 F to 113 F
(10 C to 45 C)
Non-operating -40 F to 140 F
(-40 C to 60 C)
RELATIVE HUMIDITY
Operating 8% to 80%
Non-operating 8% to 80%
non-condensing
POWER
Maximum Dissipation 8 watts
Requirements +5V DC + 5%
ERROR RATES
Soft Read Errors 1 per 10 to the 10th bits tranferred
Hard Read Errors 1 per 10 to the 12th bits tranferred
Seek Errors 1 per 10 to the 6th bits tranferred
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPATIBLE DRIVES LIST
MANUFACTURER MODEL CYLINDERS HEADS ORIGINAL PERSTOR
CAPACITY CAPACITY
________________________________________________________________
MINISCRIBE 3425 615 4 21.4 39.0
8425 615 4 21.4 39.0
8438 615 4 21.4 39.0
8425F 615 4 21.4 39.0
8438F 615 4 21.4 39.0
6032 1024 3 26.7 48.7
3650 809 6 42.2 77.0
3053 1024 5 44.6 81.0
6053 1024 5 44.6 81.0
6079 1024 5 44.6 81.0
3085 1170 7 71.3 130.0*
6085 1024 8 71.3 130.0
6128 1024 8 71.3 130.0
SEAGATE ST225 615 4 21.4 39.0
ST238 615 4 21.4 39.0
ST125 615 4 21.4 39.0
ST4051 977 5 42.5 77.0
ST251 820 6 42.8 78.0
ST277 820 6 42.8 78.0
ST4096 1024 9 80.2 146.0
NEWBURY DATA NDR1065 918 7 55.9 101.0
NDR1085 1024 8 71.3 130.0
1140 1024 15 133.6 243.7
2190 1224 15 159.8 291.0*
MAXTOR 1065 918 7 55.9 101.0
1085 1024 8 71.3 130.0
1140 1024 15 133.6 243.7
2190 1224 15 159.8 291.0*
CDC WREN 2 94155-19 697 3 18.2 33.1
36 697 5 30.3 55.3
38 733 5 31.9 58.1
48 925 5 40.2 73.4
51 989 5 43.0 78.4
57 925 6 48.3 88.1
67 925 7 56.3 102.7
77 925 8 64.4 117.4
86 925 9 72.5 132.1
NEC D5126 615 4 21.4 39.0
D5127 615 4 21.4 39.0
D5146H 615 8 42.8 78.1
D5147H 615 8 42.8 78.1
MICROSCIENCE HH-1025 615 4 21.4 39.0
HH-1050 1024 5 44.6 81.0
HH-1120 1314 7 80.0 146.0*
RODIME 352 306 4 10.0 19.4
3055 872 6 45.0 83.0
LAPINE TITAN 20 615 4 21.4 39.0
MICROPOLIS 1335 1024 8 71.3 130.0
PTI PT225 615 4 21.4 39.0
PT238R 615 4 21.4 39.0
PT338 615 6 32.1 58.6
PT357R 615 6 32.1 58.6
PRIAM ID45H 1024 5 44.6 81.0
ID130 1224 15 159.8 291.0*
TOSHIBA MK134 733 7 44.6 81.4
MK56FB 830 10 72.2 131.7
* Formatted capacity with Translator BIOS and/or SW BIOS by Ontrack.
These drives may also be set for 1024 cylinders, but will result in a
lower capacity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pierre Perret
Perret@system-m.phx.bull.commikeu@bilver.UUCP (Mike Ungerman) (05/05/90)
I have recently installed a Perstor 16 bit hard/floppy controller in a 286 AT clone. All seemed to go well until I hooked up my Archive floppy tape unit, which interfaces through a small controller card to the Perstor. I immediately wiped out my Vfeature master disk as I was about to install that disk management software. All further attempts to write or format to drive a: resulted in a disk that would not read or boot. Discussions ensued with Perstor's tech support and Archive's tech support, the result of which were that Archive does not support the Perstor and Perstor admits there "may" be some problems using an intermediate interface card between their floppy port and the drives themselves. So far no solution and lots of cable swaps to get the tape data back on the restructured hard drive. Archive's recommendation was to junk my floppy tape backup unit and get a dedicated 60meg streamer with its own controller card