greg@dekalb.UUCP (Greg Philmon) (10/23/89)
A little note of warning for any in the hard drive market. Several months ago
I purchased the Seagate ST296N/ST01 SCSI drive kit from Hard Drives
International, a company I had heard good things about. Their advertisement
promised "1 to 1" performance. The purchase was made, largely, on this claim
as I needed a larger, faster hard disk.
Specifying second day air, I called them a week later to see where the drive
was. "We're out, expect some in a few days." Well it finally showed up about
two weeks after being ordered (second-week air?). Then the problems really
started.
Telling DiskManager to format it 1:1 (as promised in their ads) brought
terrible results. It seemed that 2:1 was the best it could do. But I
foolishly refused to believe it, instead wondering what I was doing wrong. My
old hard drive was already spoken for and I sold it when the 296N arrived.
I asked around and someone suggested shorting the "0ws" (zero wait state?)
jumper. "AH HA!" - so that's what I did wrong! I set it, backed up about 60
megs to disks (ugh), and had DiskManager give it another try.
Nope - still couldn't do 1:1. What's the problem?
Next I called Hard Drives International (not a toll-free call, BTW) and
explained my problem to a tech rep. "Well," he replied, "you need to short the
jumper labeled '0ws'." I told him I already tried that.
"Then your computer is not fast enough to handle 1:1," was his next stab.
I proceeded to tell him that I was running the drive in a 25MHz zero-wait 386.
Guess what he said? "Well, you need a 33MHz machine." Oh my god, I can't
believe I'm paying to talk to this guy.
At that point I got mad and started spouting about truth in advertising and all
that. He brought up the excellent point that he didn't write that ad. Finally
he admitted that he'd never heard of the 296N/ST01 combo being able to achieve
1:1 interleave and he could transfer me to a customer service rep that could
issue me an RMA.
About a month ago I wrote a letter to HDI, telling them my problem. No reply
has come. And the worst part is that their ads STILL flaunt the ST296N as
being "1:1". That's a damn lie, simple as that.
Anyway, I suppose this'll draw some flames, but I would NOT recommend HDI to
anyone. Their ad was a lie, their technical support a sad joke, and their
desire to please the customer amounted to "Do you want your money back or not?
We've got other things to do."
--
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| Greg Philmon ...gatech!dekalb!greg CIS: 72261,1724 |
---------------------------------------------------------taine@bibs.FIDONET.ORG (Taine Gilliam) (10/27/89)
In an article of <23 Oct 89 13:22:37 GMT>, greg@dekalb.UUCP (Greg Philmon) writes: >A little note of warning for any in the hard drive market. Several months >ago I purchased the Seagate ST296N/ST01 SCSI drive kit from Hard Drives >International, a company I had heard good things about. Their >advertisement promised "1 to 1" performance. The purchase was made, >largely, on this claim as I needed a larger, faster hard disk. > >Specifying second day air, I called them a week later to see where the >drive was. "We're out, expect some in a few days." Well it finally >showed up about two weeks after being ordered (second-week air?). Then >the problems really started. > at least you got your stuff. i had to send the credit card company after my money. it seems that at first they were out of stock but billed my card anyway and then denied it. taine --- msged 1.99L MSC * Origin: The B.I.B.S. System (803)556-9094 /PEP. (1:372/42) -- Taine Gilliam - at FidoNet node 1:372/42 w/ Magpie BBS UUCP: uunet!bibs!taine INTERNET: taine@bibs.FIDONET.ORG
cjeffery@cs.arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) (10/29/89)
Articles by taine@bibs.FIDONET.ORG (Taine Gilliam) and greg@dekalb.UUCP (Greg Philmon) describe problems dealing with Hard Drives International. Well, nobody's perfect. I am not excusing Hard Drives International, because they botched my last order (sent me a SCSI instead of MFM-- and I was stupid enough to send it back instead of keeping it!). On the other hand, their service has been very good in the past and I have been (and will still be, until they do me really wrong) a repeat customer. My first order from them arrived in 2 days, no extra charge, no problems with the drive since then (1.5 years ago). -- | Clint Jeffery, U. of Arizona Dept. of Computer Science | cjeffery@arizona.edu -or- {noao allegra}!arizona!cjeffery --
wolfordj@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (j.w.wolford) (11/02/89)
From article <754@dekalb.UUCP>, by greg@dekalb.UUCP (Greg Philmon): > > A little note of warning for any in the hard drive market. Several months ago > I purchased the Seagate ST296N/ST01 SCSI drive kit from Hard Drives > International, a company I had heard good things about. Their advertisement > promised "1 to 1" performance. The purchase was made, largely, on this claim > as I needed a larger, faster hard disk. You have to be kidding right.... what do you want from a $49 disk controller.... yes thats right I can even get a ST01 for $39 if you want... do you think it has any memory to do caching.... Sigh... And yet a WD1007 SCSI controller is > $200 and some places are trying to get > $400 there has to be something diff...... Sneering WITH you not at you... The ST01 is a 8 bit controller and you are hooking this up to a 25Mhz 386..... Your $$$ "aint" in the right place..... It don't matter how fast your CPU is if you can't get the program off of the HD then things are going to be slow unless you only run that one program all day... and I have yet to run into someone that runs only one program all day on a 386... Yes, I think the ad stinks if thats what they say.... but remember you get what you pay for and if some price is too good to be true then it is.... but atleast they would give you your money back.... If you don't want a working product or your money back at all then order from Computer Expert out of N.Y., N.Y..... If you like even better deceptive advertisement then order from ACP.... and then after you return it they will re-bill you a YEAR later.... yes that is going on right now.... luckily I saved the shipping reciept (yes its 1 1/2 years old....)... RE: HDI I ordered a ESDI controller WD1007 and a ESDI drive from HDI and said send it standard shipping... I had in 6 total days (ie 4 working days, plus sat.).... So I have not had a problem with them.... I get better than 800K/sec transfer with out a cache and with a cache I get > 11000KB/sec (yes thats 11MB/sec (B as in byte)... and this is on a lowly 286..... > Telling DiskManager to format it 1:1 (as promised in their ads) brought > terrible results. It seemed that 2:1 was the best it could do. But I > foolishly refused to believe it, instead wondering what I was doing wrong. My > old hard drive was already spoken for and I sold it when the 296N arrived. Have you tried a interleave test program like HTEST/HFORMAT or SPINWRITE to check out what the optimum interleave is.... > Next I called Hard Drives International (not a toll-free call, BTW) and > explained my problem to a tech rep. "Well," he replied, "you need to short the > jumper labeled '0ws'." I told him I already tried that. > > "Then your computer is not fast enough to handle 1:1," was his next stab. > > I proceeded to tell him that I was running the drive in a 25MHz zero-wait 386. > Guess what he said? "Well, you need a 33MHz machine." Oh my god, I can't > believe I'm paying to talk to this guy. Yes I find this hard to believe to and I too would be pissed.... But the ST01 is a 8bit controller.... > issue me an RMA. TAKE THE RMA..... get rid of that ST01 slow controller buy yourself a REAL controller ESDI or SCSI.... ie WD1007 or a ADAPTEC.... > --------------------------------------------------------- > | Greg Philmon ...gatech!dekalb!greg CIS: 72261,1724 | > --------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Wolford uunet---+ att!iwsag!jww | att!iwsag!iwtjw!jww ucbvax--+---- att --+ iwsag!jww | decvax--+
c60a-1bd@e260-1g.berkeley.edu (Jeff Davis) (11/03/89)
In article <4439@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> wolfordj@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (j.w.wolford) writes: >From article <754@dekalb.UUCP>, by greg@dekalb.UUCP (Greg Philmon): >> >> A little note of warning for any in the hard drive market. Several months ago >> I purchased the Seagate ST296N/ST01 SCSI drive kit from Hard Drives >> International, a company I had heard good things about. Their advertisement >> promised "1 to 1" performance. The purchase was made, largely, on this claim >> as I needed a larger, faster hard disk. > >You have to be kidding right.... what do you want from a $49 disk >controller.... yes thats right I can even get a ST01 for $39 if you want... >do you think it has any memory to do caching.... Sigh... And yet a >WD1007 SCSI controller is > $200 and some places are trying to get > $400 >there has to be something diff...... Sneering WITH you not at you... > >The ST01 is a 8 bit controller and you are hooking this up to a 25Mhz >386..... Your $$$ "aint" in the right place..... It don't matter how fast >your CPU is if you can't get the program off of the HD then things are >going to be slow unless you only run that one program all day... and I have >yet to run into someone that runs only one program all day on a 386... > [ some stuff deleted] >> Telling DiskManager to format it 1:1 (as promised in their ads) brought >> terrible results. It seemed that 2:1 was the best it could do. But I >> foolishly refused to believe it, instead wondering what I was doing wrong. My >> old hard drive was already spoken for and I sold it when the 296N arrived. > >Have you tried a interleave test program like HTEST/HFORMAT or SPINWRITE >to check out what the optimum interleave is.... Programs like Htest/Spinrite etc. WILL NOT WORK WITH SCSI! Does anyone know of programs which do this sort of thing for SCSI? I just reformatted my drive with a 2:1 interleave and am now getting ~500K transfer rates as opposed to 320K with 3:1 and about 100K with 1:1. This is on a 20MHz 386 with an st02 controller and the bus at 10MHz. [more stuff deleted] >TAKE THE RMA..... get rid of that ST01 slow controller buy yourself a REAL >controller ESDI or SCSI.... ie WD1007 or a ADAPTEC.... > >> --------------------------------------------------------- >> | Greg Philmon ...gatech!dekalb!greg CIS: 72261,1724 | >> --------------------------------------------------------- > >Jeff Wolford uunet---+ >att!iwsag!jww | >att!iwsag!iwtjw!jww ucbvax--+---- att --+ iwsag!jww > | > decvax--+ After speaking with tech support at seagate (well first I had to figure out how to get a person rather than a tape) they said the best interleave you could hope for is 2:1 although if you are "lucky" 1:1 might be better. I am not entirely sure that the bottleneck is the ST0[12]. I think it may be the smarts built into the drive which prevent you from running at 1:1. I am rather disappointed by the performance of the st296N but considering the price I think I can't complain too much. I am collecting stories about this drive and would appreciate anyone having used it to send me a note with benchmarks and so forth. Has anyone used it with one of the better controllers? Does it help much? Please send me mail and I will post a summary. -- Jeff Davis JCDavis@LBL.GOV or on bitnet JCDavis@LBL