rfellman@ucsd.edu (Ronald D. Fellman) (11/14/89)
A friend of mine works at Quantum and is involved with the 3.5" drives (code-named TAKO). He wanted to set the record straight concerning the recent problems with this product. 1) The problem is NOT with a bad batch of lubricant, it is that the drives were exposed to too much humidity which caused the thickening of the lubricant. The drives are manufactured in Japan by MKE but are completely designed Quantum engineers and made soley for them. The abnormally high humidity last summer is what caused the problem to become noticable. 2) They do not consider the ROM fix to be a kludge. In fact, ALL new 3.5" drives are now being shipped with that same ROM. 3) There is no reliability degradation by using the new ROMs. In summary, they feel that the 3.5" drive is a good, well engineered product. I suppose that they would say that the need for a new ROM was due to not taking into account extremes in viscosity when originally setting the ROM values. (I am merely passing this information along as a favor since he doesn't have access to Internet. Please do not send me personal mail concerning this.) (Also, I have not yet asked him about the performance degradation reported on the net.) -ron fellman
hf07+@andrew.cmu.edu (Howard Haruo Fukuda) (11/15/89)
According to MacWeek, Quantum has designed new 1" high 3.5" LPS (low
profile series) hard drives. The sizes were 52mb and 105mb with 17ms
access time and with the same 64Kbyte DisCache, time can drop to below
12ms. But does anyone know if they have changed the lubricant on the
drive? According to MacWeek, these drives will start shipping in
quantity in February and will be OEM priced lower than the current
Pro-Drive series drives. I'm thinking of waiting for the new series of
drives instead of buying one now.
I have no idea what the engineering specs are on the drives, but if the
lubricant is thickening from humidity absorbtion, then the ROM change
seems to be like putting in a stronger water pump in your car to keep
water from freezing in the cooling system when you should be adding
anti-freeze. Is it too much to expect going to the source of the
problem instead of making a "hack"? Being that my mac may spend a lot
of time in Hawaii which is surrounded by water and 80 degree year-round
temperatures, "abnormally high humidity" is very common.
-Howard
Internet: hf07+@andrew.cmu.edu
BITNET: hf07+@andrew.cmu.edu -or-
hf07%andrew@CMCCVB -or-
JNET%"hf07%andrew@CMCCVB"
CCnet: hf07%andrew@CMCCVBspector@brillig.umd.edu (Lee Spector) (11/16/89)
In article <7451@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> rfellman@ucsd.edu (Ronald D. Fellman) writes: >A friend of mine works at Quantum and is involved with the 3.5" >drives (code-named TAKO). He wanted to set the record straight >concerning the recent problems with this product. [stuff deleted] >(Also, I have not yet asked him about the performance degradation >reported on the net.) Please DO ask (or just tell) your friend about the performance degredation reported on the net! Several have reported numbers, and I have been told that some publication (Mac Week?) has actually published numbers showing slow-downs of over 100% for some operations. I don't personally have the tools or the expertise to make precise measurements, but I can tell just by watching my HD80 in action that there IS SIGNIFICANT PERFORMANCE DEGREDATION caused by the PROM "fix". (For example, when my backup program scans the disk it will sometimes go very quickly - like it always used to - and it will sometimes go MUCH slower. It goes slower only when the drive is making its munching noise that appeared immediately after the "fix.") Besides, the horrible NOISE that my "fixed" drive makes is bad enough to justify serious griping. I've heard rumors that the noises (and the speed problems) are supposed to heal themselves in "about 2 weeks". I've had the fix for longer than that, and while the symptoms sometimes subside for a day or so, they show no signs of diminishing in the long run. I often find myself opening DAs, etc., just for the sake of trying to stop my disk's clattering. This usually shuts it up for a while, but the noise eventually comes back. I sure hope the Apple/Quantum engineers do not consider the problem solved, because the current situation is absolutely unacceptable for a new, state- of-the-art, expensive machine. -Lee Spector (spector@cs.umd.edu)
c8s-an@franny.Berkeley.EDU (Alex Lau) (11/16/89)
In article <QZMCikm00XoZ02FlNf@andrew.cmu.edu> hf07+@andrew.cmu.edu (Howard Haruo Fukuda) writes: > >I have no idea what the engineering specs are on the drives, but if the >lubricant is thickening from humidity absorbtion, then the ROM change >seems to be like putting in a stronger water pump in your car to keep >water from freezing in the cooling system when you should be adding >anti-freeze. Is it too much to expect going to the source of the >problem instead of making a "hack"? Being that my mac may spend a lot >of time in Hawaii which is surrounded by water and 80 degree year-round >temperatures, "abnormally high humidity" is very common. Well, just about all drive manufacturers use the same lubricant, so the lubricant isn't really the problem. Imprimis controls the internal humidity of the drive mechanism itself, so external humidity factors won't affect drive performance. Quantum has some internal humidity control, but apparently not enough. Seagate drives have recently (in the last year or so) been exhibiting signs of having virtually no internal humidity control; I haven't recommended a Seagate drive in over a year's time. >-Howard --- Alex UUCP: {att,backbones}!ucbvax!franny!c8s-an INTERNET: c8s-an%franny.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu FIDONET: Alex.Lau@bmug.fidonet.org (1:161/444)