J.Pearce@cs.ucl.ac.uk (11/09/90)
I have recently purchased a 170M internal Quantum hard disk for my Macintosh IIci. I used SCSI Evaluator and it seems to give a significant performance improvement over the original Apple/Quantum hard disk. The Apple/Quantum gave an average access time of 22ms and a transfer rate of about 6 Mbits/s. In comparison the new Quantum gave an average access time of 16ms and a transfer rate of 9 Mbits/s. However, the original Apple/Quantum was very quite with only a slight "gurgling" noise - NO ROM PROBLEMS. The new Quantum makes quite a distinct and loud "scratching" noise, presumably when the heads move. Can anyone comment on this noise - is it normal ? I used Sliver Lining to format the new Quantum and everything seems to be OK. However, it offers a choice of drivers and a test loop to choose the optimal read/write combination for your drive. I followed this procedure and rerun the SCSI Evaluator read/write tests and they had taken a decided turn for the worse. Have I done anything wrong or is there a problem with SCSI Evaluator or Silver Lining ? John R. Pearce jpearce@uk.ac.ucl.cs Computer Science Department University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT UK
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (11/09/90)
In article <1275@ucl-cs.uucp> J.Pearce@cs.ucl.ac.uk writes: > >I used Sliver Lining to format the new Quantum and everything seems to be >OK. However, it offers a choice of drivers and a test loop to choose the >optimal read/write combination for your drive. I followed this procedure >and rerun the SCSI Evaluator read/write tests and they had taken a >decided turn for the worse. Have I done anything wrong or is there a >problem with SCSI Evaluator or Silver Lining ? I believe Quantum drives have a cache which will improve those statistics noticably, assuming you use a driver which supports the cache. Possibly Silver Lining's do not. -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu Tax the rich, and feed the poor -- until there are, rich no more.
owen@raven.phys.washington.edu (Russell Owen) (11/10/90)
We have several Quantum 80 Mb and one Quantum 170 Mb hard drives, and the 170 is much noisier during seeks. It is not obnoxious, just noticeable. All of our drives are very quiet, with almost no whine, even after three years of heavy use for two of the 80 Mb drives. We are very pleased with all of the drives. We also use SilverLining (the drives are all from LaCie, so SilverLining comes with them) and we also observed some claimed degredation with the 170 Mb hard drive. I have no idea if it is real, or a bug in SilverLining's timing routines. I haven't worried about it. The 170 Mb drive is very fast, and I didn't notice any speed change when I went from 80 Mb to 170. I suggest calling LaCie to see if they have an explanation. Russell Owen owen@raven.phys.washington.edu Astronomy Dept. FM-20 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195