t1f4387@star.tamu.edu (Farlow, T. Michael) (06/05/90)
A while back I had asked for some information regarding Hard Drives
International and Qantum/Seagate HD's. Here is the summarization of the e-mail
sent to me.
CEO SUMMARY: Basically most said to avoid HDI. Even though they offer very
competative prices, most said that they had to wait an inordinate amount of
time before receving their drives. A few sugessted that I check out Alliance
Peripheral Systems (APS) of Kansas City, MO.
Much thanks to those that took the time to send something to me. I forwarded
the information to my superiors.
Michael Farlow,
Texas A&M Computer Services Center
Disclaimer: I have no connection whatsoever with Hard Drives International or
Alliance Peripheral Systems, or any other product/organization mentioned in
this post.
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From: SMTP%"@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU:CHGARNETT@amherst" 1-JUN-1990 07:51:39.94
Subj: HardDrivesInternational
HDI is an evil company. I've had no end of trouble ordering things from this
company, for both IBM and Mac equipment. It once took 4 months to get a 30 MB
drive from them.
Quantum drives seem to be more reliable than Seagate's. I had a Seagate drive
in my Mac and had to take it back for replacement 3 times until I got a Quantum
because they were out of the Seagates, and the Quantum has been fine ever
since...
Craig Garnett
Amherst College
================================================
From: SMTP%"HANKBART@ducvax.auburn.edu" 1-JUN-1990 09:07:19.70
Subj: Quantum HDs
Michael,
You can get Quantum 105 HDs for $599 (internal) and $699 (external)
from Alliance Peripheral Systems (APS) in Kansas City, MO. I ordered from them
about 3pm on a Friday afternoon and had the drive Tuesday at 12:00 pm. That is
the cheapest price of venders as lsited in the back of the current issue of
MacWeek (which is far more current than Macworld or MacUser). I have been
very pleased with their service. Their driver software left a little to be
desired, I felt. I replaced it with SilverLining from LaCie which may not be
a viable alernative for you, but if it is, I would recommend it.
The address for APS is P.O. Box 32982, Kansas City, MO 64111. Their number is
1-800-233-7550
Mike Taylor
Auburn, AL
============================================
From: SMTP%"hyde@ngstl1.csc.ti.com" 1-JUN-1990 10:39:22.08
Subj: HDI ordering
this may be too late for you, my info-macs tend to get queued and batched
before I see them.
HDI doesn't have a good reputation for being quick on turnaround. I have yet
to see anything good said about them in info-mac. I have had no dealings with
them, except to avoid them after hearing bad things.
-- clint
=============================================
From: THOR::MKH6317 1-JUN-1990 10:42:06.08
To: T1F4387
Subj: Quantum 80's and HDI
Mike,
I just read your query in the INFO-MAC digest.
I've bought HD's from HDI in the past. I've been very happy with
them. But lately I've heard a few complaints about them. I think
they are growing a tad too fast. The complaints were from people
who ordered drives and were given the back-ordered runaround.
Todays sweethart company for drives is Alliance Peripheral Systems.
(Look in the back of any MacWeek for APS). Their price on the
3.5" Quantum 80's is $539. And for $599 you can get a Q105Mb.
I've been involved in the purchase of 4 of the 105MB drives, including
one for myself. They arrived withing 2 days and are loaded (12MB) with
some pretty good and rather current shareware/PD stuff.
I don't see how you could do any better than APS.
Matt
=====================================================
From: SMTP%"RHBECKER@vx.acs.umn.edu" 1-JUN-1990 10:43:13.44
To: T1F4387
I can recall having seen both good and bad things said about Hard Drives
International, either here or in comp.sys.mac, probably 2-3 good and 1 or
maybe 2 bad. I have also seen several messages regarding APS (Alliance
Peripheral Systems, I believe) and they were all good so far. You might
want to check them out, as I think they may have comparable prices on the
same or similar drives. I have no connections with either Hard Drives
International or APS, but have been looking at information on such drives
to replace a dead Jasmine. (<-Potentially necessary disclaimer :-()
Richard Becker
Univ. of Minnesota
RHBECKER@VX.ACS.UMN.EDU
==================================================
From: SMTP%"djb@ctc.contel.com" 1-JUN-1990 11:10:16.12
To: T1F4387
Subj: Re: INFO REQUEST: Hard Drives International & Seagate/Quantum Drives
I seem to recall the comments on Hard Drives International being
negative, along the lines of "DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE".
Unfortunately, my short-term memory is imperfect so I cannot
swear to this.
I can, however, recommend buying Quantum drives from CAi, which
is the mail-order/brand-name for a store called Computer Age in
Silver Spring, MD, and Beltsville, MD (mail-order == Beltsville).
They advertise in the back of MacUser and have both Seagate and
Quantum drives. I bought one of their Quantum 80MB external
drives in February of 1989 and have not had any problems with it
[though I have not used that machine for several months -- it's a
long story].
The disk is really fast (has 64K cache in the controller) and
the only real drawback is that for CPU-bound applications, the
disk is "too fast" (relatively speaking: I have an unaccelerated
512K -> Mac Plus w/2MB RAM). Consequently, applications tend to
load quickly and I/O intensive applications (like word processors)
run fast, but CPU-intensive applications (like HyperCard) are not
helped as much by the disk speed.
I paid $899 + about $7-8 shipping for mine (I live in the Washington
area, but I could save about $45 in sales tax by having them send
it UPS to my house in Virginia after buying it at the store in
Silver Spring). The price for the same drive is now down around
*$600* and they have larger capacity models for about the same price
I paid for my 80MB unit. NOTE: THE CAI PRICES LISTED IN THE BACK
OF MACUSER ARE GENERALLY *HIGHER* THAN WHAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY PAY --
LOWER, MORE RECENT PRICES ARE ADVERTISED IN THE /WASHINGTON POST/
EACH MONDAY [this is probably due to the huge difference in lead
times for daily newspapers vs. monthly magazines]. CALL TO GET
THE CURRENT PRICING INFO.
All in all, I am a satisfied customer of Computer Age (CAi).
Dave Bursik, Sr. Member of Technical Staff
Contel Technology Center
15000 Conference Center Dr., P.O. Box 10814
Chantilly, VA 22021-3808
E-mail: djb@ctc.contel.com / Voice: (703) 818-4497 / FAX: (703) 818-5484