yeh@cs.purdue.EDU (Wei Jen Yeh) (03/09/90)
Hello, there. I need to upgrade my system for larger disk space. Any suggestion is appreciated. The system is a 386 w/ 4mb. It currently has a miniscribe 3085 (70mb) and a seagate st251-1 (40mb), and runs un*x of course. I would like to keep the 3085 if possible. I have basically decided to go with scsi drives. The CDC 94161-182 (155mb) scsi drive that LaVerne Olney mentioned seems to be a good deal. Now come my questions... o What is the best way to upgrade? o Has anyone had good/bad experiences on this particular or any other model? o Is it possible to use combinations of MFM/ESDI/SCSI types of controllers? o Which scsi controller would you recommend? o Is it necessary that the bios has a correct drive type for the disk (scsi)? o How about dos (argh) support? any driver required? Again, any suggestion is appreciated. Wei Jen Yeh yeh@cs.purdue.edu Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) (03/09/90)
In article <9954@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, yeh@cs.purdue.EDU (Wei Jen Yeh) writes: > o What is the best way to upgrade? > o Has anyone had good/bad experiences on this particular or any other model? > o Is it possible to use combinations of MFM/ESDI/SCSI types of controllers? > o Which scsi controller would you recommend? > o Is it necessary that the bios has a correct drive type for the disk (scsi)? > o How about dos (argh) support? any driver required? > I would suggest the 1542A SCSI/floppy controller for your 386 box. It's very fast and is a drop in replacement for the standard AT controller (or it can run in the same box along side your existing controller). The drive information (heads, cyls, etc..) is embedded somewhere on the drive - so the minute you fire the system up the controller knows that it is talking to a "Miniscribe 9380S" - or whatever. Regarding the price of $800 for a 150 megs CDC SCSI drive - that's a very good price. I've seen the Miniscribe 9380S for as low as $1395 (330 megs) but the 9380S doesn't have the buffering that the CDC's do. -- The Northern Star Public Access Unix Site, Notre Dame, Indiana USA uucp: iuvax!ndmath!nstar!larry internet: larry@nstar USR HST 219-287-9020 * PEP 219-289-3745 * Hayes V9600 219-289-0286