dave@sea375.UUCP (David A. Wilson) (10/01/88)
I have an application that requires that the entire system resides on removable media. I am looking for anyone with experience running SCO Xenix or Microport on an AT with removeable disks(ie: disk drives or cartridges). I am currently running SCO Xenix in a configuration consisting of an AT with an external IOMEGA Bernoulli Box 20+20(8 inch media). Disk performance is very slow, most programs take longer to load than to complete. When using 2 disks it is sometimes even worse because I/O will not occur on more than 1 drive at a time. SCO stills supports this configuration, but considers it obsolete so future support will be limited. Also, the total capacity of 40 MB with 2 disks is barely adequate for my larger customers database, which will continue to grow indefinitely. The requirements that the disk subsystem should satisfy are: - Easy and reliable insertion and removal of media. Media is inserted and removed at least once a day, possibly several times. - Media interchangability between computers. Disk must be able to work in one of several machines(usually the same type of computer). - Relatively low cost per megabyte. Media cost should be comparable to current fixed hard disks on PC's. - Good system support for the device. It should be able to use standard disk device drivers, or else a reliable driver must be provided for Xenix. - Provide a range of disk capacities from 20 MB up to 100-200MB without changing device drivers or hardware interface cards. It seems that a subsystem providing a carrier to accept an ST506-compatible disk drive and connected to a standard ST506 controller installed in a PC slot would do the job. Is there such a system? Does it work with SCO Xenix? What disk capacities are available for it? -- David A. Wilson uw-beaver!tikal!slab!sea375!dave