jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jee Tien Tan) (08/15/90)
Thanks to all who responded to my query.
Below is a summary of all the response I got.
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From: ez000453@deneb.ucdavis.edu
To: jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
In-Reply-To: <Uai6pKu00Uw_82ZVwY@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: University of California, Davis
Bought 3 recently. Two from ClubMac and one from APS. Like the ClubMac case
better but both work great. I use the ClubMac formatter for all cartridges
and they all work fine even on the APS device. Got them for $649. The
ClubMac this week is $619. The APS uses SCSI setting dipswitches. ClubMac
uses nice plastic case whereas the APS comes in a metal case. Entirely
your preference. All drives timed at 22ms using SCSI EValuator. MY OPINION:
GREAT DRIVES.
--
oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo
o COLIN ONG Dept. Land, Air & Water Resources o
o cgong@ucdavis.edu University of California, Davis CA 95616 o
o ez000453@deneb.ucdavis.edu FULLY DISCLAIMED! o
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From: davism@creatures.cs.vt.edu (Mat Davis)
To: jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
In-Reply-To: <Uai6pKu00Uw_82ZVwY@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: VA Tech CS Dept, Blacksburg, VA 24060
I have a SyQuest (not 'SysQuest') drive, and I was wondering about the same
things before I bought it. Basically, the differing costs of drives are
related to the brand name, the software included, whether or not there's a
cartridge included, and so on.
I bought my drive from La Cie purely because of their SilverLining software.
SilverLining has the best reputation of any of the disk partitioning software
(and deserves it), but my primary reason for wanting SilverLining is that
I had seen it recover three drives that were beyond the help of any of the
other disk software that I had available. In one case, Jasmine's DriveTools
told me that the drive needed to be formatted, whereas SilverLining tweaked
the drive and all of the files and everything reappeared.
I have to admit that I had problems getting my drive from La Cie and went
through two dead-on-arrival ones, but the problem was La Cie's: they happened
to change vendors for the power supply at about the time I ordered my drive
and the supplies were shorting out the drives. Overall, though, I'm pleased:
La Cie admitted that the problem was theirs and fixed it, and I now have a
(well) working drive.
By the way, if you check around for cartridges, they're all the same but
prices vary from $130 to $80. I had trouble with Maya; the cartridges were
on backorder and they didn't tell me. A week after they told me to expect
the cartridges, I called them and found out that they *still* didn't have any
in stock and I cancelled my order. Unfortunately, I can't remember offhand
who I reordered from offhand.
I know people who have SyQuest drives from La Cia, Mirror, CMS, and DPI, and
everyone is pleased with the drive. I also haven't heard any rumors that I
trust about anything displacing them.
Mat
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From: deboni@fernando.llnl.gov (Tom DeBoni)
Message-Id: <9008021940.AA07391@fernando.llnl.gov>
To: jt1r@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Syquest drives
I've been watching that technology for a while, now, and I basically like it.
There have been problems with some of the vendors' offerings, but I attribute
them to (1) cooling, and (2) rf/em shielding. I have a group of techs here
that advise me about such stuff, and I also get advice from BMUG. I've seen
a few folks buy various brands of Syquest OEM drives, and the bottom line seems
to be that nowadays most of them are pretty reliable and usable. you may run
into some media troubles, but that's only somewhat likely under adverse con-
ditions, such as a blackout during a disk write. I own a DPI (backup drive); a
friend owns an AIC (only drive); several coworkers use Cutting Edge, Mass Micro
(singles and duals!); all report good behavior. The reason for all the price
differences is anybody's guess. I bought partly on price and partly on the
quality recommendations of BMUG. (Also, the folks from DPI favorably impressed
me with their rap and attention to important details.) I'd look for bargains
at the expo - I got mine at the April show out here on the west coast. I'd say
you shouldn't (and shouldn't have to) pay more than around $750 for a drive of
your choice, nor more than around $80 for cartridges.
of course there's new technology waiting in the wings. There always is. What
about the 3.5" magneto-optical disks that hold 125 MB and offer 35 mS access
times? Sounds great, but costs $3K. ricoh has a new removable medium drive,
with sealed cartridges (each has its own read head???), that hold around 50MB,
and they're appearing on the market now, but they cost $1300 retail. I bought
what I did because it's becoming very standard, and I needed a backup drive.
Backing up an 80 to floppies is too painful to be considered, and I don't
trust tape.
Good luck!
Tom DeBoni (deboni@diego.llnl.gov)
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From: tn505981@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu
Message-Id: <9008030029.AA01439@longs>
To: jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jee Tien Tan)
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
I own a UniMac SyQuest 44 meg removable. I love it. I purchased 6 disks with it. I got the drive for 599 and each disk for 72 bucks. I have had absolutely no problems. I think ( I am a hardware tech and student) that the price diffs are bullshit and the sales departs. of vendors are just pulling the publics legs by claiming diffs that justify paying in excess of 200 more in some cases. I shopped around for about 2 months and finally made the plundge, boy what a smart move. With my 3 HD's and the 6 d
isks I now have 540 megs of 'online' storage. Hope you have the same fun once you decide. Don't be affraid!
Sincerely,
Todd Nathan
tn505981@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu
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From: manuel@cnam.cnam.fr (manuel bouyssou)
To: jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Hi there ;-)
Well, I'm using Syquest cartridges since one year with NO troubles at all !
In fact, there's some tricks to know : Never, Never use the driver available
with your Syquest, whatever company it come from !
Myself, I have 2 syqest system : one from Germany (ProDrive) and another
one from Ehmann. Both works perfectly with only one Init/driver the SQ 1.3
from Syquest itself. I use it, because of its versability, in fact I can
read any cartridges coming from any other Syquest system. That's not true,
if you use the 'required' driver for your system. Furthermore SQ 1.3 is
a formatter, using the standart 'format' or 'erase disk' of the 'special
menu item, under the Finder. That's all ! The rest is garbage !
We're using a lot of Syquest here, with the same Inits and, nobody has
to complain about it ! So, if you can find it, I can mail it to you ;-)
Another thing : put your cardridges in their boxes, Never, Never leave them
on a desk with dust exposure ! Hope this may help.
Always Macintoshly Your's.
--
Manuel Bouyssou
Macintosh Support Officer - Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers -
Laboratoire d'informatique : 292 rue Saint-Martin, 75141 Paris Cedex 03.
- FRANCE -
"Forget about how you did it, Voice: (33)-1- 4027-2342
Just, do it !....(Myself) " BitNet: Manuel@DACTH01.BITNET
--------------------------- E-Mail: manuel@cnam.cnam.fr
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From: michel@etl.go.jp (Michel Pasquier)
Return-Path: <michel@etl.go.jp>
To: jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Organization: Electrotechnical Laboratory, Tsukuba Science City
In article <Uai6pKu00Uw_82ZVwY@andrew.cmu.edu> you write:
>
>I might be acquiring a SysQuest based HD.
>It will be use as a secondary HD and a backup system.
>I seek advice/recommendation/encouragement (or discouragement)
>from people with experience and knowledge about them.
>
I have a Microtech R45 and I am very satisfied with it.
Though I do not remember the price in USA (I had to buy it here in Tokyo
and that means almost twice the price :-( I remember I selected this one
because it was the best deal available on the market *and* because there
was at a time (one year ago?) very good comments about it from owners (on
the net). Therefore I do join them in their praise.
The Microtech R45 uses standard Sysquest cartriges which, once formatted,
offer something like 42 Meg of disk space. Loading a cartridge is *very*
fast - nearly not longer than a floppy disk - and accessing the disk is
also fast, infact almost comparable with a normal hard disk. This is
why I like it so much, because far to be only a backup device (which
was the main reason why I bought it) it is indeed just another hard disk.
The only thing I am not very pleased with is the time it takes to unload
a cartridge (one has to wait for it to stop spinning, which may take
sometimes a minute or more) which means of course one cannot switch
between cartridges like with floppy disks (sob :-).
I find it very reliable (so far - 6 months of heavy usage already),
reasonnably quiet, and nice looking. All in all, I highly recommend it.
Hope this helps,
-Michel.
ps: a bad point with all Sysquest systems is that they are not supported
by SUM (Symantec Utilities for MacIntosh) so far, though they say the
problem might be fixed in the future [just in case...]
--
...................................................................
Michel Pasquier ........................ AIST/MITI Guest Researcher
ElectroTechnical Laboratory . Intelligent Machine Behaviour Section
E-mail: michel@etl.go.jp . Tel: 298-58-5964 . Fax: 298-55-1729
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From: Jude Anand George <jg2f+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Jee Tien Tan <jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
> I might be acquiring a SysQuest based HD.
> It will be use as a secondary HD and a backup system.
> I seek advice/recommendation/encouragement (or discouragement)
Harry,
How's it going?
I've had a Microtech for exactly one year and I love it. They have good
software and the drive hasn't had any problems. BTW, last year a lot
of us at CMU got in on some group purchases of Syquests from
Microtech; I got a $2-300 discount because I was a student, and bought
mine with Pete Green. (We got them for $850 apiece, including a
cartridge, which was a very very good price at the time.) Rich Ford,
and a number of others at CMU also have Microtech Syquests. Ask to
speak to the salesman Jack, tell him I sent you. <grin> And tell him
you are a CMU student. Microtech also has a 2-year warranty on their
Syquest (5-year on their regular HDs).
Be careful if you do decide to go with another vendor, as some of them
use strange (read:incompatible) formatting software. And some don't
auto-mount, i.e. you have to reboot before the disk shows up on the
desktop. I researched a lot of brands before I decided on Microtech,
filling up a small binder with info sheets and printed email messages
from the net. That was a year ago, but I still believe Microtech is
on top.
Terrence sez you have a IIfx! Have you run MacMach, or A/UX? I'll
have Mach on my machine shortly, with X-windows, Andrew, etc. But I
won't be on AFS, unless I bring my machine to work (or use my software
on someone else's), as I don't have an IP connection in my apartment.
When do you graduate? Any chance you're coming out to the bay area?
I could show you around silicon valley. Hear from you soon,
Jude
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From: Peter Trajmar <trajmar@CS.UCLA.EDU>
To: jt1r@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Syquest drives
There is a text file that talks about syquest drives available via
anonymous ftp from sumex.stanford.edu.
Peter Trajmar
(trajmar@cs.ucla.edu)
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From: Ben Liberman <magik@chinet.chi.il.us>
To: jt1r+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Need Advice on SysQuest HD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
I got both of my SyQuest drives from APS (800-233-7550) and am happy with the
quality. They are nice people to deal with and know what they are doing.
All SyQuest drives use the same internals. The only differences are:
1) The case that the drive is mounted in.
2) The power supply
3) The formating/driver software
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Ben Liberman USENET magik@chinet.chi.il.us
GEnie,Delphi MAGIK
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